Aonghus Kelly

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Aonghus Kelly: And we need to be patient. And we live in an era of instant gratification, the internet era, the mobile phone era. And we think everything can change in an instant. It doesn’t. It takes time. So we need to be cognizant of that. And when you work in NGOs, you work on policy, I think you need to believe in what I call the law of accumulated effect. You need to wean yourself off the necessity of instant gratification. The problem for us, I think, is that the climate emergency is so grave that we really need to, to push ahead, and those bricks of the wall of that law of accumulated effect need to be put in place very quickly.

Aoifinn Devitt: I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to this 50 Faces focus series, which showcases the richness and diversity of inspiring people in the law. I’m joined today by Angus Kelly, who’s a lawyer who has a focus on international criminal law, human rights, and is presently Executive Director at Irish Rule of Law International, IRLI, which is the legal NGO working overseas founded by and representing the bars and law societies from both jurisdictions across the island of Ireland. He’s also a member of the Legal Action Committee at the Global Legal Action Network, GLAN, which uses innovative legal strategies to challenge global injustice. He previously spent time at the European Union Border Assistance Mission to Libya, as a defense lawyer at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia, often known as the Khmer Rouge Tribunal, at the Special Prosecution Office of the Republic of Kosovo, the War Crimes Prosecutor’s Office in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and prior to that as a solicitor in England working on cases involving the aftermath of the war in Iraq in 2004 and in general practice in Ireland. Welcome, Angus. Thanks for joining me today.

Aonghus Kelly: Thanks a lot, Aoifinn. Nice to meet you. Nice to speak to you today. I was going to say nice to meet you, but that wouldn’t be correct.

Aoifinn Devitt: No, great to have you. And well, that’s a long list of, I would say, hotspots in the sense of international criminal law that I’ve mentioned there. Can you talk about your background and what kind of got you ultimately into this field?

Aonghus Kelly: I can indeed, although I speak far too much, as lots of my friends and family would tell you. So you’re probably going to walk yourself into a long-running soliloquy potentially, but I’ll try and be brief. I remember the first place I qualified as a lawyer was actually in New Zealand, and the High Court judge who admitted us to the bar that day said, ladies and gentlemen, two words you need to keep as keystones in your legal careers are brevity and clarity. And I hope I’m clear, but I’m not so sure I’m brief. But I’ll try and be brief. So I’m from Galway on the west coast of Ireland. And after my schooling, I suppose I went to university in University College Cork. And following on from that, I worked as a kind of a legal assistant, a gofer, in a law firm for a year while I started to study for bar exams. In Ireland. And I kind of decided through that process that I wanted to go traveling before I started working as a lawyer. And I went to New Zealand for 4 months and stayed 4 years. And as I mentioned, I qualified as a lawyer there. And I suppose that’s where my journey starts to a degree. And that I was very lucky in that, you know, sliding doors moment. I was working in an Irish bar at the time, and I had a row with my father, God rest his soul, and He was telling me that I need to come home and either do the bar and become a barrister or do what we call the FE1s in Ireland, the solicitors exams. And I told him I wasn’t going to do that, I was going to stay abroad longer. And we had a lot of toing and froing over that. And eventually he said, well, if you’re not going to come back and do the exams, you should do them over there. And I hadn’t a clue what was the situation in New Zealand. I knew it was a common law jurisdiction like most jurisdictions in the US and like Ireland, et cetera, et cetera. That was about it. But I said in my peak of anger, I said, “Yeah, so I will then.” So I think there was an expletive thrown in there potentially as well. But then that night, after coming home from the bar, I looked up on the internet, the very slow internet as it was then, in an internet cafe as it worked then, and I found out there was a cross-qualification agreement between Ireland and New Zealand. And the next day, a lady walked into the bar and handed over a credit card to pay for drinks and had the Law Society of Ireland on her credit card. And I said to that lady, “You’re a long way from Blackhall Place,” which is where solicitors, where the headquarters of the Law Society of Ireland is and where solicitors study and qualify to become lawyers. And she laughed at me and we had a discussion. And I said to her that I’d had a row with my father the previous night and I was thinking of cross-qualifying. And she smiled at me and said, I was the first person to do that cross-qualification after they signed the agreement. And she said, if you’re serious about doing that, here’s my card, give me a ring. And seemingly I was serious because I did give her a ring and she became my mentor. And I actually just met her the other day, Therese Singleton is her name. And she’s an amazing lady. She still lives in New Zealand, but she’s over and back to Ireland on occasion, obviously with family and friends here. So that’s how I started into my route into the law to a degree. But branching out into the human rights, international criminal law side of things was when I came back to Ireland after that. I left New Zealand after that 4 years, not because I particularly wanted to leave there, but because I knew if I stayed any longer, I’d never leave there. And I still can say that it’s one of my favorite places in the world. It’s an amazing place. I went back in 2019 for the first time in 13 years, and I realized during it and as I left that I still love the place as much as I did when I was there. So I came back to Ireland, and I did the— then the qualified lawyers transfer test because I was sitting as a foreign lawyer, if you will, in Ireland. But that agreement allowed me to cross-qualify, and it meant I didn’t have to do as many exams and qualification requirements as I might have if I hadn’t qualified in New Zealand. But in that period, I went to see a guy who’d be very familiar to potentially a lot of your American listeners, a guy called Bryan Stevenson. He’s a very famous African-American lawyer. He’s done a lot of work in death row cases and a lot of work on the historical roots of prejudice and the situation of African-American people in the US, lynchings, et cetera, et cetera. And I went to see him. He was speaking at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, which again, a sliding doors moment, is based in the National University of Ireland in Galway, which is soon to be relabeled as University Galway. But that, sin scéal éile, as they’d say in Irish, that’s another story. But I went to see him and I sat there for an hour and was transfixed as he spoke about working on death row cases and human rights and human rights abuses and the criminal law. And I said, this is why I became a lawyer, not doing lots of other stuff. And then I had the good fortune to get a phone call a few days later from a friend of mine, asked me if I’d like to go to visit Palestine, where a friend of his was working. And I went to Palestine with him and met a very good friend of his who’s now a good friend of mine, a guy called John Reynolds, who lectures at Maynooth University, and his then-girlfriend Vanina Trojan, who is now his wife, and she was actually my predecessor in my present job. And I became very good friends with them, and I was kind of really exposed to something that I knew a fair amount about, which was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the situation there. You know, it’s a very prescient part of our lives in Ireland, I suppose, more so than many Western countries. And the curtains were revealed. The veil was drawn back, if you want to use a corporate law term, and revealed to me that this is what I wanted to do. So off I went. And I suppose I started my master’s. And then while I was working as a solicitor in Galway, and then progressed to those various career spots you mentioned. I wasn’t very brief, was I?

Aoifinn Devitt: That actually was the highlights. And I think it really sort of took us through the journey here. I didn’t have to ask the question about surprising turns because it does seem to be the essence of that journey that there were many surprising turns. Serendipitous meetings. But let’s get into those areas there a little bit. So international war crimes and human rights violations, you’ve spent time working in multiple international organizations. Is the progress slow? And given that some of these issues take years to resolve, and do you find that there’s a lack of measurable success and sometimes a lack of feedback?

Aonghus Kelly: Is the progress slow? Yeah, I think it is, but it depends on what you define as progress to an extent and what you’re talking about.— and I don’t mean to be a pedant or someone who’s seeking bolt-holes, which lawyers often do, and that’s part of our job, which we get criticized for, but that’s in the job description, if you will. But if you want, let’s look at a few different things. I suppose let’s look at the example of the international courts in The Hague, and people are hugely critical of them, and not without reason on occasions. But I do think if you look at the courts, there’s a number of issues there that are prescient and important to discuss. One is the fact that you’re bringing together legal cultures and legal systems from all around the planet.. And like, we have arguments amongst ourselves, amongst the common law jurisdictions, but you’re not just bringing common law jurisdictions, which there are over 60 of, but you’re bringing all the civil law jurisdictions and a variety of traditions into that room. And that’s really, really difficult. This is something that’s just started, in essence. I suppose Nuremberg was the start to it, but the real start to it was the genocidal events in, in the Balkans and in Rwanda in the ’90s. And there was fresh impetus put into that area of international criminal law. So that fact, the fact of bringing all those lawyers and all those egos, and lawyers are generally people with big egos, let’s be frank and honest about it, and verbose people. So bringing all those egos and verbose people into a room and trying to come up with a structure that will work quickly is probably a little bit naive at best or stupid at worst. But that’s what we are, where we are, and it’s something— it’s a worthy project and a worthy process. The other thing I would say is that when we’re talking about those kind of instances, the expectations of the international courts are far too high. They are courts of law. You don’t expect courts of law in the US or in France— well, maybe France potentially different, but in the US or Ireland— to be purveyors of fact. They look at the criminal liability of an accused person, and they look at the prosecutor in general, the prosecuting authority is looking at gaining conviction for an alleged criminal event which the person at trial is alleged to have committed. But we, our expectations of the international criminal courts are that they’re going to make peace, they’re going to resolve historical issues, they are going to set down truth. I think our expectations are way too high. That being said, I think that they do move far too slowly. I think there needs to be massive restructuring of the international courts. I’ve been of that belief for a long time. And to be very frank, I suppose it’s part of the reason I’ve never practiced at The Hague, because I’m not sold by the situation there. I’ve always been of the view that we’re better off working and setting up hybrid courts in the countries we’re working in, or if that’s not possible, some kind of regional element. I think they’re more plausible, possible, and workable solutions than the International Criminal Court in The Hague. That being said, I do see a place for those very, very high-level courts in The Hague. I’m not one of these people that wants to destroy the whole thing and start again, burn it down. We’ve seen that in many facets of our lives at the moment, that destroying without having a reasonable plan for what follows is a complete disaster. You see that in revolutions and invasions in various jurisdictions, and also in things like Brexit, et cetera, et cetera, and populist cries to burn the house down. That sounds nice and it’s attractive, but it never works in general. And therefore, we have to have a solution. And the solution is reform, not revolution, when it comes to international courts. So I suppose that’s a summation of the courts. And as I said, I’m a great believer in the courts in-country or regional courts, because I think they have much more effect., and they’re much more fast-moving and dynamic and also have a spillover effect of assisting and practice and procedure in those domestic jurisdictions, which are often very damaged and need assistance. But I suppose moving on from the courts, if you look at the NGO sector and the policy side of things, Rome wasn’t built in a day. It’s a truism, it wasn’t. And we need to be patient. And we live in an era of instant gratification, the internet era, the mobile phone era, and we think everything can change in an instant. It doesn’t, it takes time. So we need to be cognizant of that. And when you work in NGOs, you work on policy, I think think I you need to believe in what I call the law of accumulated effect. And I talked to my colleagues in IRLI about that, and I talked to friends of mine. We discuss matters in the international sphere a lot. You need to believe in the law of accumulated effect. You need to wean yourself off the necessity of instant gratification. I love the instant gratification as well as the next man or woman, but you need to believe in that law of accumulated effect and changing things step by step and building that wall. So, you know, the work that IRLI does at the moment We’re working on cases in Malawi and on bail applications where people have been detained for months, years, if not some of them decades. But we’re also working on trying to help our Malawian colleagues with their work on changing the structure. And that’s slow work and that’s slow progress, but it has to be done because if we don’t do it, the alternative is very, very, very grim. And I suppose the last thing is that with this type of work, I think the coming area in many ways is the environmental side of, you know, very common acronym you hear in the corporate world of ESG. That side of things is the coming work point. It’s coming side for lawyers, I think, and for their interaction with other professionals, whether that be in economics or academia. I think that ESG side of things, we’re seeing that very fully now when it comes to how the West is dealing with the situation in Ukraine and the sanctions they’re putting on. But that leeches over into other areas. So that’s really, really important. And again, we have to believe in the law of accumulated effect. The problem for us, I think, is that the climate emergency is so grave that we really need to push ahead, and those bricks of the wall of that law of cumulative effect need to be put in place very quickly.

Aoifinn Devitt: That’s fascinating. One of the other guests in this series, Maryam Al-Rashed, who is an international arbitrator but also does some human rights work, made exactly the same point around the kind of fusion now of so many of these disciplines, even into the international litigation sphere. Then, in terms of some of these areas, I would imagine that many of these experiences were formative for you in terms of some of the issues you dealt with, perhaps the extremes of human behavior that you encountered, or at least were dealing with the legal aftermath of. Were there any particular moments throughout this career so far that have been formative, that have been meaningful? And we’ll maybe just, given the need for brevity, we’ll maybe focus on one or two.

Aonghus Kelly: The first thing I would say is the amazing people I’ve had the great pleasure and honor of meeting. There’s a famous quote in this which I’ve unfortunately forgotten. In essence, it’s about how the price one pays for traveling and for experiencing different cultures and different ways and different things is that sense of loneliness that you miss certain people in your lives. And all these countries that I’ve had the great pleasure of working in, in the Balkans, in North Africa, in Southeast Asia, in the Middle East, I have met such amazing people. And that’s the thing I take with me, the amazing friends I’ve made, the amazing people I’ve met. The amazing work those people do. Because I’m, in general, with the exception of, I suppose, to a degree now when I’m back in Ireland, but in general, I’m an outsider in their country. And I’m always very cognizant of that fact because I’m trying to do my best to help them as best I can. But it’s their country, not my country. And I will leave at some stage in all likelihood, and they’ll have to stay and they have to progress the country. I can’t. Only they can progress the country, not me. I can try and help them. But the real backbreaking work of changing a place has to be done by the people from that place because imposed solutions very, very, very rarely work. So that’s my first one. I’d say that I’m so honored and lucky to have met such amazing people. Formative experiences, so many of them. So, so many of them. In addition to those amazing people I’ve met, I suppose being at exhumations in Bosnia and Kosovo when we were searching for loved ones of people that had gone missing, that had been disappeared, that had been murdered. Seeing the results of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans and seeing how it affects people’s mentality and how those difficulties, those memories, those scars pass from generation to generation, not completely unusual to me coming from Ireland. And I suppose particularly when I go up to the north to go to Belfast, which I go to very regularly as Irish Rule of Law International is a cross-border organization, those scars are very visible to me when I walk around the streets of Belfast or driving through towns and villages across Northern around. But those moments, you know, meeting victims, meeting survivors, meeting the families of people who’ve been killed, those are telling moments. You know, so many of those stories, I suppose, in the Balkans, but also in Southeast Asia, also North Africa.

Aoifinn Devitt: Let’s move now to talk about the future and what excites you most about this area you work in, in terms of progress we’re going to see in the next 5 years.

Aonghus Kelly: Well, you know, hard to say. I don’t know what’s going to happen. What needs to happen is something I’ve just mentioned, that, that issue of dealing with the climate emergency. And I think lawyers need to become really active You know, I gave a lecture to a group of American students who were visiting Ireland a few days ago. We were discussing future job prospects, and when I tell to young lawyers now, when they talk about international criminal law, etc., etc., and international human rights law, I say to me the big show is the kind of work that GLAN do, that strategic litigation side of things. It’s also not, you know, that’s from a legal perspective, but from a cross-disciplinary perspective, I think that people involved in finance, people involved in corporate law, people involved in economics, people involved in academia, that interaction of those various fields to deal with the enormous challenge we have facing us. You know, I’m sitting here at my desk in Dublin and I can see I’m surrounded by several articles on the, in essence, impending doom we are faced with by the climate emergency. And that affects everything. And that affects migration, it affects security, it affects resources. It affects the way we live and the way we will live. And it is very in-your-face if you get down and are willing to open your eyes and look there in front of you. Because if you’re seeing mass migration already, movements, it’s driven in poorer parts of the world by the actions of richer parts of the world. And you have this rise of populism, often right-wing pseudo-fascist or fascist movements across the Western world that are acting because of— they feel this movement of people But in fact, it’s our actions in those rich countries that are driving a lot of those movements of people. The loss of fisheries, the loss of grazing land, the loss of water is driving this instability, driving conflict, and therefore driving people into the arms of bandits, jihadis, etc., etc. And that’s also true in the Western world where this income division— Piketty has done a lot of work, another economist— and this movement away from allowing people to have a decent standard of living It is unequal and therefore is driving further inequality and therefore is driving people to the extremes. And that worries me greatly when we have a climate emergency which we need to face as a global community. So that’s the area that I think needs to be dealt with in the next 5 years, in the next 10 years. And we need to get busy and get moving as quickly as possible because if not, we’re done for, I fear.

Aoifinn Devitt: Interesting. It ties with, I think, some forecasts I saw recently that environmental science, sustainability will be the new computer science in terms of the generations to come. But tied to that, and you mentioned speaking with students, is there any particular advice you give these students in terms of entry points, skills, and personality traits that you found useful in this area? Because I’m sure it’s an area that is highly desired.

Aonghus Kelly: It is an area that’s highly desired, although I suppose not as lucrative as many other careers, although I would try to work it, as I mentioned, in that those more lucrative professions in the corporate and financial side of things, that they too can play their part in this. Shouldn’t remove yourself, not just because you go into the corporate world or the business world, that you can still play a part in making the world a better place. And that sounds a little bit utopian and potentially fairy-like, for want of a better term, but it’s true. And I really do believe that. And this conversation I regularly have with corporate lawyer friends and financial types, but I think that’s important, first of all. Secondly, if it is— if this, the purer side of things, for want of a better term, is the direction you want to go in, then I think that there’s a number of things that are important. I would say languages are really important, and if you don’t have languages, so be it, you can only deal with what you have. But if you have the ability to hone a language or languages, then I would do that and improve them. I also think when you go and work in a country, it’s both good manners and good sense to learn some of the language of that place you’re working in, because to show your respect for the people of that place, but also to show your willingness to engage and learn and improve and there’s nothing more representative of that than the ability to say a few words in the language of that place, because it shows how you respect those people. I would say that networking, no more than every career, is really, really important, and talking to people and learning from people and staying in contact with people, I think that’s really, really important. I suppose also something that I’m not so great at myself, but I think is important, is taking time away from the internet and reading Articles, reading books, and learning. Personally, I’m a great fan of the Stoic philosophers. I think they have a lot to teach us going back over centuries and millennia. So yeah, and then if I was saying the areas of law, as I said, those intersections, particularly on the environmental side of things, but on governance, we’re seeing this a lot in work on sanctions at the moment, et cetera, et cetera. Those intersections are very, very interesting. So that’s a short abridged version of advice I might give, although I’m far from a perfect sense. They’re far from that completely.

Aoifinn Devitt: That’s an excellent piece of advice there. Let’s move to diversity within the profession, because that is a huge focus now, not only for the legal profession but across other professions such as finance and investing. So from your vantage point, do you see that diversity has improved over the course of your career? How would you assess it today?

Aonghus Kelly: That’s a difficult question for me to answer because I suppose I’ve been working in many places where I would have been in the minority. I would have been working with local colleagues and partners from those countries, so So when I step back into my home jurisdiction, Ireland, now, is the situation different in my home jurisdiction now than what it was? 100% it is. But that’s because the country that I grew up in when I was a child, and there was, you know, it was Irish people, and the only foreigners in inverted commas were people, the sons and daughters of immigrants who had left and come back and had funny accents, to a situation now where 20% of the population of Ireland is foreign-born. And I’m a big fan of that because I think we’ve gained enormously from that and will gain and are gaining. But I wouldn’t claim to be an expert in the area of diversity. What I would say is that if we’re looking at— I can’t, as I said, I can only speak to this in my own jurisdiction, Ireland, at present. But one thing that I’ve spoken to several lawyers about and is very obvious to me is the fact that if we look at the legal professions in Ireland, whatever about diversity of skin color or ethnic origin, we certainly have diversity when it comes to the male-female side of things. In fact, the vast majority of law schools students, to the best of my knowledge, even in my day, back in the late ’90s, early 2000s, were female, and that continues to be the case. And we’re seeing that moving through the professions, although we probably don’t have as high a number of female senior-level partners in the big firms and senior members of the bar and the judiciary as one would like, because we need to reach 50/50 at least, because that’s the population we’re serving. But we’re getting there, and it’s great to see some of the really, really able lawyers at those firms, at the Bar, and in the judiciary, and the political side of things also. But I still think another area that we’re not talking about as much is the area of diversity of what they might call postcodes in the UK, air codes, which we call them in Ireland, diversity of experiences from people. And a large amount of the people we’re dealing with in those places, in the judiciary, at senior members of the Bar, and in big firms, tend to be from a certain small number of areas in Dublin and other parts of the country, which are reflective of the socioeconomic situation of those areas. And I think that’s something we need to work on. And why is that important? Because look, that’s society around the world. You’re always trying to improve things, but we never reach perfection. And that’s, you know, Ireland’s not unusual in that regard. But why we need to improve the diversity in that, in my view, is because of the faith in democracy. And the faith in democracy is really important because lawyers representing people and then judges ruling on their lives, it’s important that those people reflect the society they represent., and if they all come from a certain coterie of society, in the world we live in today, which has been tribalized and made more angry to a degree by social media and by the internet, I think that that’s even more important than it was previously. So we need to work hard on that. Then Ireland, as I mentioned, is going to become much more ethnically, linguistically diverse. I think that’s an interesting issue. I think that my experience— and I wouldn’t pretend to be an expert in this area— but my experience is that we’re seeing more more people from ethnic and religious and linguistic minorities coming into the legal professions, but we have a long way to go. There’s been a lot of work done on that academically and also in some of the state bodies in this. I do wonder about how that’s going to progress. I think it’s easier for law firms, big law firms. I think it’s more difficult for the Bar because of the sole trader model. The barristers are all working as independent counsel, and I know there’s arguments for that. But we’re one of the few countries left with that now. It’s ourselves, Northern Ireland left with that, Scotland arguably, but they have chambers in England and Wales. They’ve merged the professions in New Zealand and Canada and the US many years ago. And I’m not sold on what’s the best way forward because each country is different, but I do think that’s something we need to look at, how we’re going to best serve ethnic, religious, linguistic minorities, to make sure women and men have equal opportunities, and to serve the diverse communities we represent across our island right now. I think that’s really, really important. So I wouldn’t claim to be an expert, but I have been observing this and watching this with a keen eye and with an eye of someone who spends a long time working in many different jurisdictions. So that would just be my tuppence worth, for what it’s worth.

Aoifinn Devitt: No, thank you very much for that. And let’s go back to some personal reflections now. So we’ve talked a lot about career highs, about the people you’ve met and some of the formative experiences you’ve had, and they may have been challenging experiences, but they were formative. Were there any particular setbacks or challenges or so-called low points in there that you learned lessons from or can share?

Aonghus Kelly: Lots of low points. Remember, I had a case— it’ll always stay with me. We had a case in Bosnia, it was a war crimes case with two guys who, you know, their own story was quite sad. They had gone AWOL, they had left Bosnia and gone to Serbia because they didn’t want to be enlisted because it was compulsory conscription. Into the army, the Bosnian Serb army, the BRS, the Vranje Republika Srpska. And they had fled to Serbia and they’d been caught and brought back, and they’d been put in a military police unit. And we alleged that they had been involved after a mass killing at a, a site outside of Srebrenica. They had been involved in execution-style confirmation killings going around and shooting people in the head. And we had very good evidence that they had been involved in that. But some of our witnesses were being threatened, and they recanted, or they refused to testify, or their statements became problematic. And we believe that was because our witnesses were being threatened, and we had reasonable evidence that had taken place. And we put that before the judge, and the presiding judge with a 3-judge panel, she refused to deal with our requests and refused to deal with the situation, we believed. And the case progressed, and the 2 men were acquitted. And the whole situation is terrible, but I believed then and I believe now that they were guilty and they should have been convicted, but they walked free. And in my view, the court didn’t deal with the really important issue which had arisen and we had brought before the court. So that bothers me. There’s another instance that bothers me, as we used to do in Bosnia Under the Law, in our belief, in the team we worked in, the prosecutorial team, 6th North we worked in, we believed that we were under a legal right to inform the victims of their right to claim compensation under the civil law. In private proceedings. Now, our own view was that the courts could have done that. There was no need for them to go into private proceedings, but the court had time and time again refused to take up that duty, in our view. And we, we did posit that opinion in filings before the court, but we knew that it was highly likely to be thrown out, and it was. And they said they need to go to the civil courts. So then our duty was to, to inform the victims, and we informed the victims. And two old ladies turned up at the front door of the building at the prosecutor’s office in Sligo, and I was sent out with one of my colleagues who was interpreting for me because sadly my Bosnian wasn’t good enough. It was okay at times, but never good enough to be dealing with that kind of level of things. And the ladies were really upset and they tore up the documents we had sent informing them of their rights and told us never to contact them again. They lost all their family, they lost their husbands and their sons and their cousins and uncles. And you’d done the right thing according to law, but you had re-traumatized these people. And I suppose that made you think a lot. There are two instances just in Bosnia, you know, there’s so many others I could think of in Kosovo. So those things are low points because you see the hurt, you see the reality for people, you see how terrible war is. And I think about that a lot when I see what’s going on in Ukraine right now, because it reminds me an awful lot of the things I’ve seen in Bosnia and Kosovo, in Libya, in Iraq. And that makes me very sad. But that’s life, you know, that can be depressing or you can use it to drive you forward. I try and use it to drive me forward. But it’s sad, there’s no doubt about it. So there are low points. And I know you mentioned professional low points, but no matter how challenging or terrible things are in one’s life, those are the kind of things for me personally that come to my mind that make me realize how lucky I am compared to so many people in the world. And I see that again, you know, going to— I was in Zambia last week for a few weeks for work for Air Alliance, and I visited the prisons there. People are convicted of illegal immigration and then serve time, and then because the authorities don’t have the money to send them back to the country they’re from, they keep them detained. So we were talking one guy from Cameroon who was in prison. He’d been convicted of illegal immigration, sentenced to 6 months, and he was there over 4 years. That’s pretty telling. In a really difficult, tough prison in Lusaka, that’s not great conditions at all.

Aoifinn Devitt: I have heard that prisoner rights are some of the lowest in the totem pole sometimes in terms of enforcement and advocacy because they can’t really advocate for themselves. So it’s often overlooked, and very important that you’re shining a light on that issue. And thank you for your reflections on those low points. I’m sure that we talked before about Northern Ireland and the scars, and I think that’s true. This history does sit like a scar. It’s always there. It may fade, but it is always there ultimately. So I also sense the same when I travel through that area. So I usually ask about key people who influenced you, and you’ve already mentioned a number. Is there anyone else, recognizing that this is not an exhaustive list, because I, I know that you probably have hundreds of people to mention. Anyone in particular who influenced you in your career and life that you can talk about here?

Aonghus Kelly: Yeah, Aoifinn, I’ve got a list of about 400 people that I’m going to read out for you in chronological order. No, and I literally could do that. Look, so many people that have been generous with their time with me. And, you know, one thing I would say to when people ask me to speak to young lawyers or speak to young people, the one thing I say to them, I try to say to them always, is, look, I’m happy to do this, but will you in 10, 15, 20 years’ time when you’re in my position, can you do do the same thing for other people coming up, because passing on the good vibes, passing on the karma, I think that’s really, really important. My boss when I first started working as a lawyer in law firm called Blake Kenyon was a guy called Michael Malloy, and he’s still a guy I have utmost respect for because he put himself out for me so much and was so kind. And like, you know, I went back to do my master’s and I was working basically a day less because of the hours I had to go to lectures. And I, I told him and he said no problem. And I said, oh, I you should— should dock my pay for a day less, and he refused. I was trying to get a job in the international world, and he knew that. And I told him that I’d been shortlisted for a job and I didn’t get it. And there was no bad blood. And he said, “Well, look, you’ll get another one that’ll be better and suit you better.” And he’s a guy I often reflect on because Michael and I would have very different political views. You know, I would be more on the greeny left side of things, and he would be more on the liberal right of center side of things. But he’s a man I have tremendous respect for. And the team he had in the law firm was one of the happiest places, if not the happiest place I’ve ever worked in. And that was because of his leadership and the way he helped and dealt with his staff. And that’s something I always admire. And, you know, my boss in Bosnia, Eric Larson, was a great guy. Again, he did a great job of leading our team there. My, you know, my boss in Cambodia, Wayne Jordache, is a great guy. I’m very, very lucky. And all those people, Therese Singleton I mentioned, you know, there’s loads of other people I could Vinod mention. Jai Chandu was my master’s— my dissertation supervisor, my master’s program, someone I just met him again yesterday for coffee. Really challenged me and still does challenge me and pushes me. And I think that’s something we as lawyers shouldn’t be afraid of, is being pushed. And I’m not saying working 17 hours a day. I’m saying having your thoughts and your views challenged. I think it’s really, really important. That’s something I think that worries me in the world, that we’ve become echo chambers that listen only to ourselves. We have to be challenged. Some of my best friends are people that are much more right of center, much more business orientated than I would be. But that’s good for me to be challenged and to be pulled up. And I hope it’s good for them to have the alternative. I was just at a good friend of mine’s wedding in the US. He’s in the US military. Some of my friends, European, particularly European friends on the left, would be quite stunned that I would be friends with someone who’s in the military. But he’s a great person and he challenges me and he does great work. And people like him are needed in the militaries of this world because they enforce international humanitarian law and respect it. And without them, then again, we’re done for. As we see in the conflict in Ukraine where there’s complete lack of adherence to international humanitarian law. So a variety of experiences and a variety of friends and being challenged, I think they’re really, really important things for us. But also being nice. It’s nice to be nice.

Aoifinn Devitt: I love that reference to challenge and the focus, because we’re all— that gives us all intellectual flexibility, right, if we are forced out of our comfort zone. So I’m very happy for you that you found people to do that. I probably need to keep searching searching for people to do that, because challenging someone takes time and effort and some intentionality too. Unfortunately, with our busy lives, we don’t always have those kind of partners or intellectual partners to do that with. So my last question is around pieces of advice. And one thing, when you spoke about some of your low points and some of these very difficult, intractable situations, I wondered whether you get some— you resort to the Stoics at times to help you get through that, or if there are any other words of wisdom whether from the Stoics or elsewhere, that you live by, that you can tell us now?

Aonghus Kelly: I don’t know if I live by them. If I did, I’d be more successful and better at the many things I need to be better at. But a phrase that was said to my then headmaster, who was a wise old Jesuit, was age quod agis, do what you’re doing. It’s an old Latin phrase, and it’s the essence of Stoicism in many ways, and certainly the essence of mindfulness, I think, which is very popular. And I think we’re very bad at that as human beings, particularly given the internet and the mobile phone. And I think that’s something I strive for every day and fail every day and try and fail better, to quote Beckett, I think it was. So I think that’s something important. I think being happy and enjoying yourself is important. Socializing, meeting people, playing sport, exercising. Exercising, in my view, is so important. And exercising can be different things. Like me, I’m a bit of an old codger now, but I still like playing a game of rugby, even though I’m battered and bruised more than I would’ve been 10, 20 years ago. I love playing squash. I love going for a jog. I love going for a walk. I love going bird watching, getting outside. And, you know, people can do different things, and that can be a walk or whatever you like, or tennis or soccer or whatever suits it— hurling, baseball, Gaelic football, whatever. But getting out there and playing some sport and talking to people and socializing, I think that’s really, really important, particularly I think for those of us in the legal side of things who sit in front of computers and a desk a lot. And having fun, you know, realizing that life is to be lived as well. And don’t get too down because we could all wallow in the madness if we got too beset by it. So I think they’re important things. And as I said, helping people out, being kind, doing your best for people, and that will come back to you. I’m a great believer in that, and that can take different forms and etc. But I do think that’s really, really important.

Aoifinn Devitt: Well, I will refer the listeners to your YouTube video for some more anecdotes about your rugby career, which I really enjoyed. I’ll put those in the show notes. Well, thank you so much, Angus. I, for one, am very glad that you do what you are doing. Your eloquence and your passion, when combined, are extremely powerful, and it has enabled you to make transformative change and to be a carrier, a flag carrier for the profession. And I, I’m very, very grateful for you for coming here and sharing your insights with us.

Aonghus Kelly: I’m trying in all those facets. I’m not sure I’m succeeding, but I’m trying, I’m trying. But thanks very much for having me, much appreciated, and I’d ask your listeners, if they’re interested in the work of Irish Youth of Launch National, to follow us on social media. You can find us on LinkedIn and Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. So thanks very much. And you also can find myself on Twitter if you want to hear my musings. I’ve just joined it last month.

Aoifinn Devitt: Oh, I’ll have to check that out. We’ll get your Twitter handle in the notes. Thank you for listening to our 50 Faces Focus series. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring lawyers and their stories, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for information only and should not be construed as investment or legal advice. All views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations of the host or any guest.