Profile image
Keina is currently a legal adviser in the Europe team of the Center for Reproductive Rights.

As a barrister, Keina specialised in international human rights law, media law, public law, inquiries and inquests. Keina acted in a groundbreaking cases before international bodies on women´s rights, environmental rights and LGBTI rights. Keina has acted in counsel in cases before the CEDAW Committee, (Rosana Flamer Caldera v Sri Lanka 2022), European Court of Human Rights, Inter-American Court of Human Rights and in high profile domestic public law challenges. Keina holds a PhD in international law from the LSE, and has published numerous articles in journals including the European Human Rights Law Review, International Affairs (shortlisted for early career prize 2021), and Human Rights Quarterly. Keina has lectured in a number of universities including the LSE (2015), City University (2018), SOAS (2020), the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (Ghana) (2017) on international human rights law.

Public Law and Equality
  • Foster v McNicol (junior counsel representing the Labour Party, led by Mark Henderson)

  • QSA, Broadfoot and ARB v Secretary of State for the Home Department and Secretary of State for Justice [2020] (junior counsel led by Karon Monaghan QC on the disclosure, recording and retention of criminal convictions for soliciting offences)

  • Delve & Glynn v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2020] (junior counsel led by Michael Mansfield QC, Henrietta Hill QC, Adam Straw representing women born in the 1950s).

  • Advising the Professional Footballers Australia (PFA) in relation to FIFA’s compliance with their human rights obligations under FIFA Statutes over unequal prize money in the 2019 Women’s World Cup (with Heather Williams QC and Jennifer Robinson).

Inquests and Public Inquiries
  • Junior counsel representing the Child Migrants Trust in the Children Outside of the UK Strand 1 of IICSA (2016 -2017)

  • Junior counsel representing Child Redress International and ECPAT in the Children outside of the UK Strand 2 of IICSA

  • Junior counsel representing the Centre for Women’s Justice in the Organised Networks strand of IICSA

  • Acting in an Article 2 investigation commissioned by the Ministry of Justice into a young woman who self-harmed in prison

Keina has also acted in a number of Article 2 inquests representing bereaved families. These include:

  • Inquest into the death of a person detained in a medium secure unit raising issues about ambulance service responses and resulting in a PDF report;

  • Inquest into the death of a British man in a Spanish police cell, with a neglect finding. National reporting in both Spain and the UK

Media Law

Keina practises in media law in cases concerning free speech, reporting and newsgathering.  She is a pre-publication lawyer at a number of newspapers and accepts instructions on a wide range of media law issues.  Keina also has experience of representing NGOs on access to information and surveillance issues.

Recent cases include:

  • Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council v M, F, G (a child) etc [2016] EWHC 2260:  acted alone for the Times Newspapers Limited successfully ensuring that the matter was heard in open court.  The case concerned open justice, and reporting restriction orders.

  • Butkevich v. Russia [2016] (European Court of Human Rights): led by Caoilfhionn Gallagher, for the Media Legal Defence Initiative (MLDI), ARTICLE 19 and the Mass Media Defence Centre, intervening, in this case concerning the arrest and ill-treatment of a Ukrainian journalist when he was covering protests taking place in St Petersburg during the G8 summit of 2006. The case raises serious concerns regarding freedom of expression, and the law enforcement’s response to newsgathering, in Russia, and it raises issues about the appropriate approach for the European Court to adopt.

International Human Rights Law

Prior to the Bar, Keina worked as a staff attorney at Women’s Link Worldwide strategically litigating women’s rights cases (such as BS v Spain). She has helped to organise and been part of a number of Expert Group Meetings with the CEDAW Committee and with the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women and Girls, its Causes and Consequences.

She is currently instructed in a number of human rights cases both domestically and internationally on issues which rate to indigenous rights and environmental law; LGBT rights; the relationship between state immunity and human rights.

Reported cases:

  • Butkevic v Russia (ECHR acting for MLDI intervention)

  • AB v United Kingdom (sexual and reproductive rights)

  • Angela Gonzalez v Spain (CEDAW Committee, intervention)

Publications and Seminars

Keina is on the editorial board of the journal Feminist Legal Studies. She regularly publishes in academic journals on the issues of women’s rights, environmental rights and on the right to privacy.

Selected academics publications include: 

  • The Protection of the Environment: A Gendered Analysis, Goettingen Journal of International Law, (2020)

  • The Trends and Challenges of Climate Change Litigation and Human Rights, EHRLR, Issue 2 (2020) 161-173, with Joana Setzer

  • The Nature of Women, Peace and Security: Where is the Environment in WPS and where is WPS in environmental peacebuilding? WPS working paper series 22/2019 

  • Human Trafficking as a gendered phenomenon: CEDAW in perspective, Journal of Asylum, Immigration and Nationality Law, (with Gema Fernandez)

  • The domestic prosecution of gender crimes in Argentina, Human Rights Quarterly, August 2017, (with V Waisman and P Soria]

  • Privacy Injunctions in an Internet Age:  the PJS Decision. European Human Rights Law Review (August 2016)

  • Towards Intersectionality in the ECHR: the case of B.S. v Spain. Feminist Legal Studies, (2013) 21: 195-204.

  • Book Review, Predrag Dojcinovic (ed.), Propaganda, War Crimes Trials and International Law.  Journal of International Criminal Justice 2013 11: 692-694.

Selected published reports include:

  • Centre for WPS, 40 Years of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (2020), Christine Chinkin and Keina Yoshida, Report available here.

  • Trial International Manual ‘La prevue audiovisuelle devant les instances internationales: techniques et admissibilite’ (with Jelia Sane) 2019. Report available here.