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Professor

Felicity Gerry KC

Professor Of Practice

Faculty of Business and Law/Deakin Law School

Orcid identifier0000-0003-0431-9492
  • Professor Of Practice
    Faculty of Business and Law/Deakin Law School
  • +61427220988 (Work)
  • Melbourne Burwood Campus, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125

BIO

Felicity Gerry KC is Professor of Legal Practice at Deakin University where she lectures on International Criminal Law and is involved in the Clinical programs. She researches issues relating to women & law, technology & law and reforming justice systems with a particular emphasis on using technology to combat human trafficking in organised crime. Felicity holds a PhD on human trafficking and is regularly called upon to handle complex and sensitive matters at trial and on appeal.

Labelled “The International Dynamo”, Felicity has been recognised for her work across jurisdictions on career defining cases including in the UK Supreme Court on Joint Enterprise law, the Australian High Court on rights to second appeal, a due diligence memorandum on investment listing on SGX for Justice for Myanmar, which led to the $82m divestment of the Golden City scheme and for her role in saving a trafficked woman from death row in Indonesia. She is leading the legal petition for Christine Keeler to receive a posthumous pardon after the fallout of one of Britain’s biggest ever political scandal, The Profumo Affair, in the 1960s. Her successful petition for mercy for Zak Grieve, a young Indigenous man in Australia, has been described as “rock star lawyering”.

She is admitted in the International Criminal Court (ICC) & Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) in The Hague, in England & Wales and Australia (Victoria & High Court Roll) and has had ad hoc admission in Hong Kong and Gibraltar. Felicity is currently defending at the ICC on the Al Hassan team and has led for the defence in major terrorism and homicide trials.

Felicity has consulted for the UNODC and various NGOs. She has a long history of training professionals: this includes prosecutors in Rwanda on human trafficking, gender-based violence and corruption law as part of the Bridges to Justice Project; the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Modern Slavery Project and the Bangladesh Judiciary Management Project. Her policy submissions have led to changes in the law on Modern Slavery, FGM and Reproductive Rights and supported approaches to Afghanistan post-withdrawal.

She currently leads a Deakin University and Victorian Legal Services Board funded research project on the experiences of trafficked women in criminal justice. She led a death penalty study for the Commission of Human Rights for the Philippines and a Human Trafficking report in 2023 for the International Bar Association and contributed to the 2022 Edge of Law Report in key legal challenges in the Asia-Pacific for the Bar Human Rights Committee and the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative.

Felicity is widely published in the fields of women and law, technology and law, and reforming justice systems. She is the co-author of The Sexual Offences Handbook and contributed to Annotated Leading Cases of International Criminal Tribunals, the Research Handbook on Feminist Engagement in International Law, Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery Law and Practice, and is the Editor of ANZSIL Perspective.

DEAKIN UNIVERSITY CURRENT APPOINTMENT

  • Professor Of Practice
    Deakin University, Deakin Law School

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • Professor of Legal Practice
    Deakin University, Law, Melbourne, Australia1 Jan 2018 - present
  • Adjunct Fellow
    Charles Darwin University, Business and Law, Australia1 Jan 2018 - present
  • Adjunct Fellow
    University of Western Sydney, Law, Australia1 Jan 2017 - present
  • Senior Lecturer
    Charles Darwin University, Law, Darwin, AustraliaJul 2013 - Jul 2018

NON-ACADEMIC POSITIONS

  • King's Counsel
    Crockett Chambers, Melbourne, Australia1 Jan 2017 - present
  • King's Counsel
    Carmelite Chambers, London, United Kingdom2004 - 2020
  • King's Counsel
    Libertas Chambers, London, United Kingdom2020 - present

DEGREES

  • Doctor of Philosophy
    Charles Darwin University
  • Master of Law
    University of Western Sydney

POSTGRADUATE TRAINING

  • Graduate Certificate in University Teaching and Learning
    Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Australia2017 - 2017
    Other
  • ICSL Post-Graduate Qualification as a Barrister
    Inns of Court School of Law, Middle Temple, London, United Kingdom1994 - 1994
    Other

LANGUAGES

  • English
    Can read, write, speak, understand and peer review

FIELDS OF RESEARCH (2020)

  • Law in context
  • Legal systems
  • Private law and civil obligations
  • International and comparative law
  • Crime and social justice
  • Access to justice
  • Legal institutions (incl. courts and justice systems)
  • Criminal law
  • Law, gender and sexuality (incl. feminist legal scholarship)

AREA/FACULTY

  • Faculty of Business and Law

DEPARTMENT/SCHOOL/INSTITUTE

  • Deakin Law School

RESEARCH STRENGTHS