Alliance for Lawyers at Risk

The Alliance

The Alliance for Lawyers at Risk comprises around 100 individuals and institutions drawn from the legal community in the United Kingdom.

The ability to bring human rights claims in court against governments or corporate interests is normally taken for granted in the UK. In many parts of the world, however, lawyers representing individuals subjected to injustice face significant, even life-threatening risks. Lawyers in some countries regularly receive threats to themselves or their families, are physically attacked, abducted or even assassinated simply for doing their jobs. In Colombia alone, as many as 25 lawyers are killed each year.

The Alliance supports human rights lawyers and human rights defenders around the world who are at risk because of the work that they do.

Our membership is listed here.

A message from the President of the Alliance:

When I agreed to take on the Chairmanship of the Alliance in 2017, I was struck by the calibre and breadth of its membership. The Alliance represents a powerful force of around 100 pre-eminent members of the judiciary, the Bar, the solicitors' profession, academics, legal journalists and other esteemed members of the profession. It represents the best of the UK legal community. It has a powerful role to play in identifying and challenging threats to the rule of law in those countries where it is under threat and in supporting our professional colleagues and human rights defenders who are at risk because of the work that they do. The Alliance is apolitical and it is not afraid to challenge those whose threats and actions against human rights lawyers and human rights defenders might otherwise pass unnoticed. Operating with a very small budget, relying almost entirely on the contribution of time and effort from our members, volunteers and support from other groups such as Peace Brigades International, the Alliance is the voice that speaks for lawyers and human rights defenders who are at risk.

Sir Patrick Elias