Madeleine Rees is a British lawyer and Secretary-General of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), a role she has held since 2010.

For most of her adult life, Rees has worked nationally and internationally to advance human rights, eliminate discrimination, and remove obstacles to justice.

In the United Kingdom, where she specialised in discrimination law as a partner with a major firm, Rees undertook cases on behalf of the Commission for Racial Equality and the Equal Opportunities Commission to establish rights under domestic law. She also brought causes to the European Court in Luxembourg and the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) – including helping to secure the ECHR’s landmark 1996 ruling preventing employers from dismissing transgender individuals because they had undergone gender reassignment.

In 1998, Rees became the gender expert and Head of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. While in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rees helped expose human rights abuses and the involvement of UN peacekeepers in sex trafficking – work for which she was portrayed by Vanessa Redgrave in the 2010 film The Whistleblower.

From 2006 to 2010 she served as Head of the Women’s Rights and Gender Unit with the OHCHR in Geneva, where her aim was to facilitate the incorporation of gender analysis into the work of the OHCHR.

As Secretary-General of WILPF, Rees is leading the organisation’s efforts to work through national and international legal frameworks to advance a future of human security and justice for all. Passionate about connecting women across borders to share experiences and organise for action, she is committed to building a true global movement for feminist peace.

In 2014, Rees was awarded the OBE for her services to human rights, particularly women’s rights and international peace and security. She also holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh and received the Dean’s Justice Award from the City University of New York School of Law.