Kerry McLean is an international human rights lawyer and social justice activist. Over the past 17 years, Kerry has lived in Africa, Europe, and Asia, working with local and international organizations on human rights and international development. She has engaged in significant U.N. advocacy, including litigation with treaty-monitoring bodies, writing shadow reports concerning compliance with CERD, CEDAW, and CAT, Human Rights Council advocacy, coordinating civil society organizations for UPR reports, and working with U.N. Special Procedures mandate holders. Kerry has worked on litigation at the European Court of Human Rights and has done advocacy at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. She has provided training and delivered lectures on international human rights in the United States and other parts of the world.
Kerry has served as an election observer in Cambodia, Honduras, Venezuela, El Salvador, and Abkhazia. She has also served as a trial observer in Turkey for trials involving persecuted lawyers and human rights defenders, and she organizes solidarity activities for Turkey with multiple organizations. She is a member of the Geneva Support Group for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights in Western Sahara, an international advocacy coalition that supports the fight of the Sahrawi people for independence and self-determination. Kerry was a lead organizer of and served as the spokesperson for the International Commission of Inquiry on Systemic Racist Police Violence Against People of African Descent in the United States, which investigated and evaluated cases of police violence.
Kerry serves as a Co-Chair of the American Bar Association’s International Human Rights Committee and a Vice Chair of the ABA’s Africa Committee. She is a former national board member of the National Lawyers Guild and current Co-Chair of the NLG International Committee. She is the recipient of the Guild’s 2021 Debra Evenson Venceremos International Award for her work “extending justice beyond borders.” Kerry is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, where she received the Jenny Runkles Award for devotion to public interest and was a two-time recipient of the Bates Fellowship for overseas work. She is admitted to practice in New York.
