Jennifer Button
Consultant and Independent Practitioner
Ms. Button is an independent justice and governance consultant, following a 28-year career as legal counsel with the Ministry of Justice, British Columbia. During her tenure at the Ministry of Justice, Ms. Button provided legal and policy advice on such matters as environmental law, gender issues, human rights law, judicial independence, rule of law, and intellectual property. Her primary responsibility was as one of two constitutional solicitors for the Province.
While a government lawyer, Ms. Button volunteered with the Canadian Bar Association, and with the American Bar Association-UNDP International Legal Resource Center (ILRC) in Washington, USA; she served on the Board of Directors of an NGO which provides funds and organizational assistance for AIDS relief in Kenya; and she was UN monitor for Lawyers Rights Watch Canada. She also spent six weeks in The Hague as a Visiting Professional with the Trust Fund for Victims of the International Criminal Court.
As an independent consultant, Ms. Button has been a gender expert for the UNDP in Belarus and prepared two reports for the Commonwealth Secretariat (London, UK) (administrative judicial independence in the Commonwealth of Nations, and the over representation of vulnerable groups in Commonwealth criminal justice systems). On two occasions, she traveled to Somaliland, as part of a team under contract to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to teach principles of constitutional law to the judges and senior staff of the Supreme Court. She has also worked as an election monitor in Ukraine.
She holds a B.A. (Hons) and an M.A., a Permanent Teacher’s Certificate (British Columbia), and a J.D. (Juris doctor). She has done training in monitoring and evaluation and project management. She has been assessed at EU level B2.2 in the French language. She has both Canadian and British citizenship.
Areas of Expertise: Justice Reform; Access to Justice; Constitutional Law, Rule of Law, Judicial Independence; Gender Issues; Human Rights; Capacity Building; Legal Research, Analysis, Writing, Editing