Gerry Liston is a Legal Officer with the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN). He leads their work on challenging the 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. In addition, Gerry 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. Gerry has also assisted in the drafting of two Bills in the Irish parliament – the Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill which requires Ireland’s sovereign wealth fund to divest from fossil fuels (a world first) and the Occupied Territories Bill which, if enacted, will prohibit certain trade with occupied territories. 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.
