Mary Lawlor on Human Rights Defenders

At the commencement of her new mandate as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights Defenders, Mary Lawlor speaks to IHRB’s Salil Tripathi about her plans for the work. She speaks about the shrinking space for human rights defenders, of the intimidation and threats they face. She will focus on the violence against human rights defenders, including murders committed with impunity, as well as the forgotten prisoners kept in prolonged detention. From business, she expects greater responsibility and commitment to respecting human rights.

Mary Lawlor teaches at the Centre for Social Innovation at the School of Business at Trinity College Dublin. She founded Front Line Defenders, the international foundation for the protection of human rights defenders in 2001, which has concentrated on supporting human rights defenders at risk. Front Line Defenders (with whom IHRB collaborated and published a joint report on business and human rights defenders in 2015), has received the King Baudoin International Prize in 2007 and the UN Human Rights Prize in 2018. Prior to that, she headed Amnesty International’s Irish Section from 1988-2000, and was its chair 1983-1987.

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