Michael Benedict Emmerson CBE KC (born 30 August 1963) is a British barrister, specialising in public international law, human rights and humanitarian law, and international criminal law. From 2011 to 2017, he was the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism. Emmerson is currently an Appeals Chamber Judge of the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals sitting on the Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. He has previously served as Special Adviser to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and Special Adviser to the Appeals Chamber of the ECCC (the UN-backed Khmer Rouge Tribunal in Cambodia).
In his legal practice, Emmerson has acted for a number of foreign Governments in connection with international armed conflicts, including the Governments of Croatia, Cyprus, Georgia and Ukraine. He has also represented several current and former heads of State and other political figures, including Mohammed Nasheed (former President of the Maldives); Ramush Haradinaj (former Prime Minister of Kosovo); Arseny Yatsenuk (former Prime Minister of Ukraine); and Carles Puigdemont (ex President of Catalonia). He has appeared in numerous cases in the European Court of Human Rights, acting for and against the Government of the United Kingdom and other Council of Europe Member States, and has appeared in the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court and other international courts and tribunals.
Emmerson's former clients include WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (in connection with an attempt to extradite him to Sweden); GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun (who was prosecuted under the UK's Official Secrets Acts following the 2003 invasion of Iraq); and Marina Litvinenko (the wife of former Russian FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko, who was assassinated in London in 2006 using the radioactive isotope Polonium 210). Emmerson also represented Abdelbasset al-Megrahi (the Libyan intelligence officer convicted of the Lockerbie bombing) in his appeal against conviction in Scotland, and subsequently acted for Abdullah Al-Senussi, the former head of national security to Colonel Gaddafi, in proceedings before the International Criminal Court.
Within the UK, Emmerson has been a deputy High Court Judge, a Master of the Bench of the Middle Temple, a visiting professor of international law and security at the University of Oxford, and an Honorary Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford. In 2016, he was awarded an honorary PhD from Bristol University.
Emmerson has been described by former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Theresa May, as "one of the UK's most distinguished lawyers in the field of national and international human rights law". He has also variously been described as the "bête noire of the right wing press", a lawyer with a "leviathan intellect"; and the human rights industry's equivalent of trade union leader Len McCluskey.
As of 2020, he is representing Kadri Veseli.
Early life, education and early career
Born in Kent, his father Brian Emmerson was finance director of the Stock Exchange in London. He attended Douai School and Bristol University, and was called to the bar in 1986. Until 1999 Emmerson was a member of Doughty Street Chambers, but in February 2000 he left to join the new Matrix Chambers which specialises in human rights. In May 2000 he was appointed Queen's Counsel. In January 2019, he moved to Monckton Chambers.
International appointments
In June 2011, Emmerson was elected by the UN Human Rights Council as UN Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism and Human Rights. He held this mandate until July 2017. In this capacity he reported annually to the UN General Assembly, the UN Human Rights Council and relevant entities established by the Security Council. He also conducted country visits and reports, and provided technical and other advice to states. He produced reports on the counter-terrorism policies of Saudi Arabia, Chile, Sri Lanka, Tunisia and Burkina Faso. His first thematic report, published in 2012, concerned the human rights of victims of terrorism. The report was welcomed by Amnesty International, which commended his decision to "promote better recognition and respect for the human rights of victims of terrorism". He also produced reports on the use of armed drones for counter-terrorism operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Palestine, accountability for the torture of terrorist suspects, human rights violations committed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, electronic surveillance, terrorism and migration, the impact of national security measures on civil society, and the UN's counter-terrorism sanctions regime.