Freedom of Expression Advisory Panel

Floyd Abrams
(USA) Partner, Cahill Gordon & Reindel
The leading first amendment lawyer in the USA, who has for several decades represented journalists, newspapers and media groups in a variety of cases, including numerous cases before the Supreme Court. He is the William J Brennan, Jr. Visiting Professor of First Amendment Law at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. 

Professor G�bor Halmai
(Hungary) Director, Hungarian Human Rights Information and Documentation Centre
A distinguished law professor and former advisor to the President of the Constitutional Court of Hungary. He has been active in a number of free expression and media law cases, and recently completed a year as a visiting professor at Princeton University in the USA.

Wendy Harris
(Australia) Barrister-at-law
A free expression and constitutional lawyer who has represented media and other clients in a variety of leading Australian free expression cases, including Theophanous v The Herald & Weekly Times Ltd, the seminal Australian decision on the interaction of the constitutional freedom of expression with the law of defamation. She has an active public law practice and has spoken, written and participated in national and international fora on free expression issues.

Asma Jahangir
(Pakistan) Advocate of the Supreme Court of Pakistan
A leading human rights advocate and, since 1998, UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary  Executions. She has been active in many free expression cases in Pakistan on behalf of individual journalists as well as newspapers and was a recipient of the UN's Millenium Peace Prize.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill QC (Chair)
(UK) Senior Member of the English Bar
Long active in leading free expression and free press cases, he has represented journalists and newspapers in cases throughout the Commonwealth as well as before the European Court of Human Rights, and has written and lectured widely on the right to free press.

Gilbert Marcus SC
(South Africa) Advocate of the Supreme Court of South Africa
An advocate of the Supreme Court of South Africa, who has practised and written extensively in the field of freedom of expression. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (LLB) from Wits and an LLM from Canterbury, and is a former Associate Professor of Law at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies at the University of Witswatersrand.

Paul Schabas
(Canada) Practitioner
A partner and co-chair of the litigation department at Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP in Toronto, he has acted as counsel on many cases involving media law, defending the Toronto Star in defamation trials, and regularly acting for the media on free expression cases involving access to courts, publication bans and freedom of information. He recently appeared in the Supreme Court of Canada on behalf of the Canadian Newspapers Association.