Mónica Feria Tinta

Monica Feria Tinta is a British/Peruvian barrister, a specialist in public international law, at the Bar of England & Wales. She practises from Twenty Essex, London.

In 2000 Monica Feria-Tinta became the first and only Peruvian-born lawyer to receive the prestigious Diploma of The Hague Academy of International Law in history, the year Professor Pierre-Marie Dupuy delivered the General Course. Her litigation work led to the first international human rights court decision ordering the prosecution of a former Head of State for crimes under international law. In 2006 she was awarded the Inge Genefke International Award for her work as an international lawyer and in 2007 she became the youngest lawyer to be awarded the Gruber Justice Prize, for her contributions to advancing the cause of justice as delivered through the legal system; an honour she received at a ceremony chaired by US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in Washington DC.

Feria-Tinta was the first Latin American lawyer to be called to and practising at the Bar of England and Wales. She is also a member of the American Society of International Law, a Partner Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, and a visiting fellow at Jesus College, University of Cambridge. In 2019 she was amongst the 64 distinguished women barristers selected to feature in the celebratory exhibition of a Century of Women in Law at the Middle Temple. The exhibition marked 100 years since women were permitted to enter the legal profession in England & Wales, led by Helena Normanton, the first woman to practise as a barrister in England. Feria-Tinta is a Bencher at Middle Temple.

In 2019 she made news as acting Counsel in the first-world climate change litigation brought by peoples from low-lying islands against a State, before the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the Torres Strait Islanders case. In a ground-breaking decision, the U.N. Human Rights Committee found that the failure of a Sovereign State to adequately protect indigenous peoples from low-lying islands against adverse impacts of climate change violated their rights under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. She has been a leading expert on climate change litigation globally, including on a potential Advisory Opinion before the International Court of Justice and/or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Provided by Wikipedia