Felicity Gerry is an Australian

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...

, academic, and media commentator. She is a professor of Legal Practice at

Deakin University Deakin University is a public university in Victoria, Australia. Founded in 1974 with antecedent history since 1887, the university was named after Alfred Deakin, the second Prime Minister of Australia and a founding father of Australian Fede ...

and practices at Libertas Chambers in London and Crockett Chambers in Melbourne.

Education

Gerry studied undergraduate law at the University of Kingston Upon Thames, earning a

Bachelor of Laws A Bachelor of Laws (; LLB) is an undergraduate law degree offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree and serves as the first professional qualification for legal practitioners. This degree requires the study of core legal subje ...

(Honours) degree. She attained postgraduate qualification as a barrister at the

Inns of Court The Inns of Court in London are the professional associations for barristers in England and Wales. There are four Inns of Court: Gray's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, Inner Temple, and Middle Temple. All barristers must belong to one of them. They have s ...

School of Law, London (

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court entitled to Call to the bar, call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple (with whi ...

) in 1994. She later went onto complete her Masters of Law (LLM) and

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

Charles Darwin University Charles Darwin University (CDU) is an Australian public university with two campuses in Darwin and six satellite campuses in metropolitan and regional areas of the Northern Territory. It was established in 2003 after the merger of Northern Ter ...

Career

Gerry has appeared in the

UK Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (initialism: UKSC) is the final court of appeal for all civil cases in the United Kingdom and all criminal cases originating in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as some limited criminal cases ...

on joint enterprise law and the Australian High Court on rights to second appeal. She contributed to the International Bar Association's report on human trafficking, and is a senior

anti-human trafficking Human trafficking is the act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harboring, or receiving individuals through force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of exploitation. This exploitation may include forced labor, sexual slavery, or oth ...

consultant for

Lawyers Without Borders Lawyers Without Borders (LWOB) is an international non-profit organization founded in 2000 by Connecticut Attorney, Christina M. Storm, which operates worldwide from its central headquarters located in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.A. Its single ...

. She has conducted research and handled cases involving human trafficking and

modern slavery Contemporary slavery, also sometimes known as modern slavery or neo-slavery, refers to institutional slavery that continues to exist in the 21st century. Estimates of the number of enslaved people range from around 38 million to 49.6 million, d ...

. In 2015, she assisted in reprieving human trafficking survivor

Mary Jane Veloso Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso (10 January 1985) is a Filipino who was arrested in Indonesia for drug trafficking in 2010 and then sentenced to death after being found guilty at trial. Granted a temporary Pardon#Related concepts, reprieve in 2015, she ...

from execution in Indonesia. She co-wrote a legal memorandum on due diligence and compliance issues under international law (including modern slavery considerations) regarding the

Singapore stock exchange Singapore Exchange Limited (SGX Group) is a Singapore-based exchange conglomerate, operating equity, fixed income, currency and commodity markets. It provides a range of listing, trading, clearing, settlement, depository and data services. S ...

listed Golden City scheme in Myanmar. This memo led to divestment from the scheme. She is a professor of Legal Practice at

, where she teaches courses on contemporary international legal challenges, including sanctions law, war crimes, modern slavery, and digital law. Gerry has also been appointed

Honorary Professor Honorary titles (professor, president, reader, lecturer) in academia may be conferred on persons in recognition of contributions by a non-employee or by an employee beyond regular duties. This practice primarily exists in the UK and Germany, as ...

at the

University of Salford The University of Salford is a Public university, public research university in Salford, Greater Manchester, Salford, Greater Manchester, England, west of Manchester city centre. The Royal Technical Institute, Salford, which opened in 1896, be ...

. She is a commentator on international legal issues, particularly relating to international crimes, terrorism, and human rights abuses. She has appeared in a number of documentaries and news stories, including

BAFTA The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA, ) is an independent trade association and charity that supports, develops, and promotes the arts of film, television and video games in the United Kingdom. In addition to its annual awa ...

nominated, ''The Cruel Cut,'' the

Foreign Correspondent A correspondent or on-the-scene reporter is usually a journalist or commentator for a magazine, or an agent who contributes reports to a newspaper, or radio or television news, or another type of company, from a remote, often distant, locati ...

produced, ''Mary Jane: The woman who escaped a firing squad,'' the

Logie Award The TV Week Logie Awards (known colloquially as The Logies) is an annual ceremony celebrating and honouring the best shows and stars in Television in Australia, Australian television, sponsored and organised by the magazine ''TV Week''. The eve ...

nominated, ''The Queen & Zak Grieve,'' and BBC Three's ''Sex on the Edge''. She is also the Editor-in-Chief of ANZSIL Perspective.

Key cases

* Gerry led the appeal before the

R v Jogee was a 2016 judgment of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom that reversed previous case law on joint enterprise. The Supreme Court delivered its ruling jointly with the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which was considering an appea ...

, in which the court held that the law on

joint enterprise The doctrine of common purpose, common design, joint enterprise, joint criminal enterprise or parasitic accessory liability is a common law legal doctrine that imputes criminal liability to the participants in a criminal enterprise for all reaso ...

had been wrong for three decades. * Co-counsel for Al Hassan at the

International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an intergovernmental organization and International court, international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to prosecute ...

. * Lead counsel for the Bahtijari defence team at the

Kosovo Specialist Chambers The Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) (; sr-Cyrl-Latn, Специјализована већа Косова, Specijalizovana veća Kosova) is a court of Kosovo, located in The Hague (Netherlands), hosting four ''Specialist Chambers'' and the ''S ...

. * Led the defence for an accused 'Federation Square bomb plot' at the

Supreme Court of Victoria The Supreme Court of Victoria is the highest court in the Australian state of Victoria. Founded in 1852, it is a superior court of common law and equity, with unlimited and inherent jurisdiction within the state. The Supreme Court compri ...

and for a ' terrorist acts' case associated with a fire at a mosque in a

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

suburb in 2016. * Led the team that obtained the first successful petition for mercy in the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

for young Indigenous man Zak Grieve. * Led the intervention for

Justice In its broadest sense, justice is the idea that individuals should be treated fairly. According to the ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', the most plausible candidate for a core definition comes from the ''Institutes (Justinian), Inst ...

on the law on 'subjecthood' in the

Shamima Begum Shamima Begum (born 25 August 1999) is a British-born woman who entered Syria to join the Islamic State at the age of 15 in 2015. As of 2024, she is living in al-Roj detention camp in Syria. While enrolled at Bethnal Green Academy, Begum and ...

appeals. * Led the submission for reparations for historic slavery in the

Cook Islands The Cook Islands is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of 15 islands whose total land area is approximately . The Cook Islands' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers of ocean. Avarua is its ...

for Cook Islands lawyer Michelle Tangimama.

Law reform

In 2014 Gerry was part of the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales team drafting a report to the Parliamentary Inquiry into

Female Genital Mutilation Female genital mutilation (FGM) (also known as female genital cutting, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and female circumcision) is the cutting or removal of some or all of the vulva for non-medical reasons. Prevalence of female ge ...

('FGM'), which contributed to legislative change on FGM law in the United Kingdom. She is the co-author of the ''Sexual Offences Handbook: Law, Practice and Procedure'', published by Wildy, Simmonds and Hill Publishing in the United Kingdom and has written two reports for

LexisNexis LexisNexis is an American data analytics company headquartered in New York, New York. Its products are various databases that are accessed through online portals, including portals for computer-assisted legal research (CALR), newspaper searc ...

on women in prison. She is also leading the campaign for posthumous exoneration of

Christine Keeler Christine Margaret Keeler (22 February 1942 – 4 December 2017) was an English model and showgirl. Her meeting at a dance club with society osteopath Stephen Ward drew her into fashionable circles. At the Cold War (1953–1962), height of the ...

, who was jailed for nine months in 1963 for a perjury, associated with the

Profumo scandal The Profumo affair was a major scandal in British politics during the early 1960s. John Profumo, the 46-year-old Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's Conservative government, had an extramarital affair with the 19-year-old model Ch ...

. In addition to her work in

, she has contributed research and advocacy to changing the law on joint enterprise in the United Kingdom, and was a co-drafter of the ''Joint Enterprise (Significant Contribution) Bill'' tabled in UK Parliament by Kim Johnson MP in 2023.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gerry, Felicity International lawyers Living people Australian lawyers Deakin University alumni King's Counsel Year of birth missing (living people)