Mónica Feria Tinta

International Lawyer Monica Feria Tinta, awarded the Gruber Justice Prize 2007

Mónica Feria Tinta (born September 1966) is a leading public international lawyer. She practises as a barrister from 20 Essex Street Chambers. In 2000 she became the first Peruvian-born lawyer to receive the Diploma of the Hague Academy of International Law in history.^[1] Her litigation work led to the first international human rights court decision ordering the prosecution of a former Head of State for crimes under international law.^[2] In 2006 she was awarded the Inge Genefke International Award for her work as an international lawyer ^[3] and in 2007 she became the youngest lawyer to be awarded the Gruber Justice Prize, for her contributions advancing the cause of justice as delivered through the legal system; an honour she received at a ceremony chaired by US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Washington DC. Among the members of the selection panel awarding the Justice Prize that year was Justice Sandra Day O'Connor from the US Supreme Court. Past awardees of the Gruber Justice Prize include Thomas Buergenthal (former ICJ judge), Arthur Chaskalson (former President of the Constitutional Court of South Africa), Michael Kirby (former Justice of the High Court of Australia), and Justice Rosalie Abella (from the Supreme Court in Canada).

Feria-Tinta has the distinction of being the first Latin American lawyer to be Called to and practising at the Bar of England and Wales^[4]. She is also a member of the American Society of International Law.

Education and career

Feria-Tinta studied international law at the London School of Economics receiving her LL.M with merit in 1996. She received further training at the Institut International des Droits de l'Homme in Strasbourg (1997) and at the Institute of Human Rights of the Abo Academy in Turko (Finland) under the sponsorship of the European Commission and the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2001.^[2] In 2000 she was among the 24 lawyers selected worldwide to be trained by members of the International Law Commission in all areas of General International Law, taking part in the thirty-sixth session of the International Law Seminar in Geneva, pursuant to General Assembly resolution 54/111, under a United Nations Fellowship.^[5] Her areas of expertise include international dispute settlement, immunities, treaty law, self-determination under international law, boundary delimitation, law of the sea, territory, investment law, human rights, use of force, laws of war, State Responsibility (inter alia State Responsibility for crimes against humanity,^[6] genocide, extrajudicial executions and torture);^[7] command responsibility for gross human rights violations;^[8] victim rights under international law.^[9]

After teaching Public International Law at the London School of Economics as a Teaching Assistant to Sir Christopher Greenwood (then Professor at LSE), Feria-Tinta spent a year as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge, at the time under the Directorship of former Whewell Professor of International Law, James Crawford.^[10]

As a practising lawyer Monica Feria-Tinta has advised States, international organisations and individuals in the area of public international law. She started her practising career working for international tribunals; first at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and a year later, at the International Court of Justice, gaining experience in the adjudication of complex international litigation both entailing individual international criminal responsibility and State responsibility.^[11] She acted as legal advisor for a State Delegation taking part in the negotiations of the Rome Statute, at the Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court in Rome.^[12] In litigation, she has appeared as counsel before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights the United Nations Human Rights Committee, UN CEDAW Committee, and has advised parties before the International Court of Justice, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, Court of Appeal (England) and Court of Appeal (Hong Kong). Expert opinions provided in different international fora have included an Amicus Curiae to the Constitutional Court of Colombia (on the Special Jurisdiction for Peace), a joint Amicus Curiae with Professor John Dugard (former Special Rapporteur on Diplomatic Protection at the ILC) for the Appeals Court of Amsterdam, in the Bouterse case, and expert comments on behalf of the Redress Trust to the Final Report of the UN Independent Expert on the Right of Reparation for Victims of Serious Violations of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Cherif Bassiouni.^[11]

Her advocacy work before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights contributed to major changes in that regional system. Monica Feria-Tinta pioneered the rights of victims in the Inter-American system challenging for the first time the use of State appointed Ad hoc Judges in individual petitions before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,^[13] which led to the end of a practice that had existed for nearly two decades.^[14] She also advocated for the need of a Victims' Fund for legal aid before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to ensure access to justice and equality of arms for victims.^[9] A Victims Legal Assistance Fund before the ICHR was finally created in 2010.^[15] She litigated the first international human rights case in the world on the protection of the rights of the child in times of war ^[16] and obtained the first international binding decision on gender justice in the history of adjudication of the Inter-American region, initiating the feminisation of human rights law in the Americas.^[17] Feria Tinta's pleadings prompted the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to hold a State accountable for violations of the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence against Women ( "Convention of Belém do Pará") for the first time in eleven years, since its entry into force. Most notably, her litigation work on behalf of hundreds of prisoners led to a landmark case on prisoners' rights where the Inter-American Court ruled on a massacre taking place in a prison and on torture practices that had never been tested before an international human rights tribunal, ordering as a consequence, the prosecution of former Head of State Alberto Fujimori for crimes against humanity.^[17]

Her forensic experience investigating and documenting torture in international contentious cases, was used as model to train advocates worldwide, representing victims of torture, by the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims.^[18] In 2009 she was commissioned to take part on a project by UNESCO entitled "Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right: Law's Duty to the Poor" (The Philosopher's Library Series) contributing with a thorough study on litigation in Regional Human Rights Systems (European, Inter-American and African) on the justiciability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.^[19]

Feria Tinta has been a speaker in human rights issues in different fora worldwide including the Human Rights Caucus of the US Congress,^[20] the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, the University of Oxford (Centre for Socio-Legal Studies),^[21] and Georgetown University Law Center. She has been a guest lecturer at Guangxi Normal University, Faculty of Law, China, and at the Master Program of the Institute Universitaire Kurt Bosch-University of Fribourg, Switzerland.^[22]

Selected publications

• The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as a Litigation Tool before the Inter-American System of Protection of Human Rights" in Litigating the Rights of the Child, T Liefaard and J. E. Doek (ed), Springer, 2014 ISBN 978-94-017-9444-2
• The Landmark Rulings of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on the Rights of the Child, (Book) Brill Nijhoff, Series International Studies in Human Rights, 2008 ISBN 9789004165137.
• 'Litigation in Regional Human Rights Systems on Economics, Social and Cultural Rights against Poverty" in "Freedom from Poverty as a Human Right" Volume 4, 2009 UNESCO Publishing; Van Bueren (ed), Series Editor: Pierre Sane.
• "Justiciability of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Inter-American System of Protection of Human Rights: Beyond Traditional Paradigms and Notions"; Human Rights Quarterly, Volume 29, Number 2, May 2007, pp. 431–459.
• "Due Process and the Right to Life in the Context of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations: Arguing the LaGrand Case", EJIL 2001.
• "Commanders on Trial: The Blaškić. Case and the Doctrine of Command Responsibility under International Law", Netherlands International Law Review / Volume 47 / Issue 03 / December 2000, pp 293–322.
• "La Víctima ante la Corte interamericana de Derechos Humanos a 25 años de su funcionamiento"; Revista IIDH, instituto Interamericano de Derechos Humanos 43.
• “Individual Human Rights v. State Sovereignty: The Case of Peru’s Withdrawal from the Contentious Jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights” Leiden Journal of International Law (2000), 13: 985-996 Cambridge University Press.
• "La Responsabilidad Internacional del Estado en el Sistema Interamericano de Protección de Derechos Humanos a 25 años del funcionamiento de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos: Las Lecciones del Caso Hermanos Gómez Paquiyauri. UNAM Ihttp://biblio.juridicas.unam.mx/libros/5/2496/8.pdf
• "Primer caso internacional sobre violencia de género en la jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos: El caso del penal Miguel Castro Castro; un hito histórico para Latinoamérica." CEJIL journal year II, No. 3 -
• M. Feria-Tinta and G. Verdirame, ‘The Entry into Force of the Human Rights Act, 1998’, 4 International Law Association Forum (2000) 213-217.
• "The Right to Seek Asylum and the Authority of International Refugee Law: The Case of the United Kingdom", African Yearbook of International Law, Volume 8, 2000.

References