Webber Wentzel partner and media law expert, Dario Milo has been appointed to the Global Media Freedom Initiative's High-Level Panel of Legal Experts for 2019/2020. The High-Level Panel is an independent body convened at the request of the United Kingdom (UK) and Canadian governments and chaired by Lord Neuberger, former President of the UK Supreme Court.

The panel of legal experts will examine legal and policy initiatives that states can adopt to improve media freedom, including promoting best practice and model legislation to protect media freedom, and how the law can assist in reversing the trend of violence against journalists.

The other 15 members of the panel of experts, which includes four judges, are:

• Lord Neuberger, former president of the UK Supreme Court and Master of the Rolls of the Court of Appeal (Chair);
• Amal Clooney, (Deputy Chair) - barrister at Doughty Street Chambers and prominent international human rights lawyer;
• The Honourable Irwin Cotler, former Attorney-General and Minister of Justice of Canada;
• Hina Jilani, a human rights lawyer in Pakistan and member of The Elders (a group set up by Nelson Mandela);
• Sarah Cleveland, professor of human and constitutional rights at Columbia University;
• Baroness Helena Kennedy, director of the International Bar Association's Human Rights Committee (based in the UK);
• Nadim Houry, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative (based in Lebanon);
• Can Yeğinsu, a barrister practising human rights and public law in the UK and Turkey;
• Karuna Nundy, an advocate of the Indian Supreme Court;
• Galina Arapova, director of Mass Media Defence Centre in Russia;
• Justice Manuel José Cepeda Espinosa, former chief justice of the Constitutional Court of Colombia;
• Professor Kyung-Sin Park, professor at Korea University School of law and director of Open Net Korea;
• Baroness Françoise Tulkens from Belgium, former vice-president of the European Court of Human Rights;
• Ms Catherine Anite, founder of the Freedom of Expression Hub in Uganda; and
• Judge Robert D. Sack (adviser to the panel), senior judge, US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit and author of Sack on Defamation.  

Full details of the panellists are available here. Milo is the only South African on the panel. The panel of experts met for the first time on 10 July 2019 in London during the Global Conference to Defend Media Freedom.

Amal Clooney, the Deputy Chair of the Panel at the conference said: "The High-Level Panel of Legal Experts brings together leading international experts on media freedom, including judges, lawyers and academics, from all over the world. I look forward to working alongside them to develop and advance legal frameworks that can help to protect media freedom around the world."

​Dario Milo: "I am honoured to have been appointed to this important panel and privileged to work with leading experts in human rights and media law. The panel's work has already begun and I am enthusiastic about its role in championing and defending media freedom around the world."

Submitted by Webber Wentzel