Sadaka Second High-level Forum March 2022

Israeli Apartheid: Developing Ireland’s Strategy

Session 3: Developing a Coherent International Response to Apartheid. Chair: Caoimhe de Barra, CEO, Trócaire

Gerry Liston: The Occupied Territories Bill - where to next?

Gerry Liston has been Legal Officer on the Board of Sadaka since 2013. Gerry is employed as Legal Officer with the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN). He leads GLAN’s work on challenging trade in goods produced with forced labour, most recently focusing on EU trade measures which relate to cotton produced with forced labour in Uzbekistan. Gerry also manages GLAN’s climate change litigation work which explores the possibility of taking cases against multiple States to international courts, challenging their failure to properly tackle climate change. Gerry also works on seeking accountability for torture and other serious human rights violations. In 2016, he helped to initiate a private prosecution brought in the Irish courts against the Attorney General of Bahrain on behalf of a Bahraini torture survivor. In addition to the initial drafting of the Control of Economic Activities (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018, Gerry also assisted in the drafting the Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill which requires Ireland’s sovereign wealth fund to divest from fossil fuels (a world first). Gerry led Sadaka’s campaign on the Occupied Territories Bill (OTB) since it was first tabled in 2018 and continues to act as legal advisor for the OTB Campaign. Gerry is a qualified solicitor in Ireland and holds an LLM from the Irish Centre for Human Rights, where he is currently a part-time PhD student. Back to Forum