Dr. Alice Edwards is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture — the first woman to hold the mandate in its 40-year history. She has documented human rights violations and advocated for justice, rehabilitation and peace on behalf of victims and survivors in major wars, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda, Mozambique, Russia-Ukraine, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, and Palestine and Israel. Previously, she served as the chief legal adviser at the UN Refugee Agency (2000-2015) and led the inter-governmental Convention against Torture Initiative (2016-2021), supporting states to ratify the Convention and strengthen implementation of international law. In 2024, she was nominated for Australian of the Year. 

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC (event moderator) is a leading international human rights lawyer, and has acted in many landmark cases in the UK, Europe and internationally. This includes landmark cases involving children’s rights, on behalf of survivors of abuse, abortion access in Northern Ireland, and representing bereaved families of the Hillsborough Disaster and the 7/7 London bombings. Caoilfhionn has challenged many governments internationally on behalf of those wrongfully imprisoned, and secured the freedom of over eighty-five victims of wrongful imprisonment, including journalists, bloggers and activists. She is a leading expert on accountability for the deaths of journalists and regularly acts for bereaved families of journalists killed for their work. Caoilfhionn was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2017 for her work on human rights. In 2023 she was awarded the President of Ireland’s Distinguished Service Award and in 2025 she was Irish Tatler’s International Woman of the Year.