Team

Educated at Paris-II Assas University and Paris Criminology Institute, François Zimeray was admitted to the Paris Bar in 1987 and practised for 20 years at the leading Paris law firm, Jeantet.

He has specialised in both international commercial and international human rights law. Practising before both national and international courts, including the International Criminal Court and the European Court of Human Rights, he has worked on a range of complex legal challenges, such as the Khmer Rouge genocide and child soldiers in DRC. François Zimeray has been Member of the International Criminal Bar, was admitted as expert in the French Institute for international legal experts (IFEJI) and founded in Paris the Alliance des Avocats pour les droits de l’Homme.

As a Member of the European Parliament, Francois Zimeray was particularly active in the Legal Affairs committee and took part in the preparatory debates on the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.

As the French Ambassador-at-large for Human Rights, Francois Zimeray became France’s highest ranking diplomat for human rights, a position he assumed over five years, serving two Presidents, and working directly with Bernard Kouchner, Alain Juppé and Laurent Fabius. As Ambassador, he conducted more than 100 field missions covering a wide range of human rights challenges (notably in Iraq, Libya, Colombia, DRC, and Sri-Lanka). His notable work included, drafting a Strategy for Human Rights for the French Government, which included cutting edge recommendations for business and human rights challenges; engaging actors on the Rana Plaza tragedy; and monitoring the trials of Khodorkovsky and Tymoshenko in Moscow and Ukraine respectively. Assigned by the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alain Juppé, Francois collated evidence of war crimes committed by the Syrian regime. He represented France three times before the Human Rights Council (UPR) and co-presided sessions on child soldiers before the UN Security Council.

In 2013, François Zimeray was appointed Ambassador to Denmark. In this capacity, he developed bilateral trade and cultural relations and created the very first Human Right’s Prize of French Embassy, awarded by Robert Badinter. On 14 February 2015, soon after Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, he survived a bloody terror attack in Copenhagen. The shooting targeted a meeting where he took part in order to support cartoonists and human rights activists.

Working languages

French, English, Spanish

Publications

“J’ai vu partout le même visage”, an essay about universality of Human Rights (Plon, Paris 2016 and Gyldendal, Denmark 2015), Pierre-Simon-Thérèse Delpech award, ethics and geopolitics.
“The mayor and the legal protection of environment” (Paris, Litec 1994, foreword by Michel Barnier)

Op-eds

Les droits de l’homme peuvent-ils être une diplomatie ? (Revue des Deux Mondes, 2018)
La France face aux « barbares » (Politique Internationale n°136, 1992)
Protéger l’industrie française contre une concurrence aussi déloyale qu’immorale, c’est possible (Les Echos, 2013)
Les grands contrats ne sont pas les ennemis des droits de l’homme (Les Echos, 2010)

Distinctions/Awards

Knight of the Legion of Honour
Medal of the Paris Bar

Educated at the Universities of Sorbonne and Oxford, Jessica Finelle was admitted to the Paris Bar in 2009.

Jessica Finelle practiced for eight years at the Paris law firm, FTMS, working with Pierre-Olivier Sur (the then President of the Paris Bar). Jessica specialised in complex criminal cases in France and abroad, representing both defendants and victims in the areas of cross-border crime, white-collar crime, international criminal law, terrorism, extradition, and human rights.

Before creating Zimeray & Finelle, she founded an independent practice in 2016.

Present for a few years both in France and the United Kingdom, Jessica regularly collaborates with solicitors and barristers whose clients are confronted with issues of French criminal law (national or transnational cases) or procedures of extradition in France. Jessica also represents clients in Francophone Africa and other foreign jurisdictions, and is on the list of counsels at the International Criminal Court.

Recent cases include:

• Defence lawyer for the main opposition leader in Congo-Brazzaville, in a criminal trial of breach of national security and illegal detention of weapons;
• Civil party lawyer for the opposition leader of Cambodia who was a victim of a grenade attack in Phnom Penh (in a lawsuit in Paris);
• Civil party lawyer for Cambodian victims before the UN war crimes court (ECCC) set up to try the Khmers Rouge;
• Defence lawyer for a (former) State Minister and son of former President of Senegal in a trial of corruption and illicit enrichment before Senegalese courts;
• Civil party lawyer for victims of brutally repressed demontrations althrough Iraq in 2019 and 2020 ;
• Civil party lawyer for victIms of parental child abduction in Japan. Jessica filed a complaint in 2019 before the UN Human Rights Council against Japan for serious violations of the rights of the child.

Working languages

French, English.

Associations

Member of the European Criminal Bar Association (ECBA)

Member of the Defence Extradition Lawyers Association (DELF)

Educated at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, Georgetown University in the Unites States, and at the Sciences Po Law School in France, Catalina de la Sota joined the firm in 2021.

Prior to embracing a legal career, she was an analyst in an economics consulting firm in Brussels. She thus has a particular knowledge of economic regulation issues as well as a certain expertise in financial analysis.

With a special focus on financial crime, Catalina de la Sota began her professional career in law as a judicial assistant to two senior judges in charge of pre-trial investigations in white collar crime and fraud cases at the Paris Tribunal. She also trained at the law firms Vey & Associés and Antonin Lévy & Associés.

Today, Catalina de la Sota practises criminal law, including white collar crime, extradition and international criminal law, Human rights and civil litigation. She recently obtained the cancellation by Interpol of a red notice issued against an entrepreneur from a Latin American country in violation of the rules protecting the right to a fair trial. Catalina de la Sota assists numerous Spanish-speaking clients in proceedings before both national and international courts.

She also teaches at the Sciences Po Law School and is an editor at Juriste International, the journal of the Union Internationale des Avocats. She was named one of ‘Les 42’, an initiative by Lefebvre Dalloz to select 42 legal professionals under the age of 42 for their excellence and achievements.

Working languages
French, English and Spanish

Educated at the universities of King’s College London, Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and Paris II Panthéon-Assas, Blandine Gentil joined the firm in May 2023.

Blandine Gentil holds both a French Masters degree and an English LLB in French and English law (honours). Having a strong interest in European and international issues, she interned at the CJEU with the British judge and with the European and International Affairs Department of the French National Commission for Information Technology and Civil Liberties (CNIL). 

During her training at the Bar School, she completed a six-month placement with the Paris tribunal unit of judges leading pre-trial investigations on crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocides, developing an acute knowledge of criminal procedure and of the functioning of the judicial institution. 

Blandine Gentil completed her traineeship with the law firm Ancile Avocats, gaining experience in criminal law matters, international criminal and human rights law. She also dinterned within the banking-finance department of De Pardieu Brocas Maffei law firm, gaining an insight into the business world. 

Blandine Gentil holds a Master’s degree in Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (cum laude) from the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas, where she taught as a tutor to Master’s students on the law of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Working languages
French, English.

Educated at Sciences Po Paris, and having also studied at the University of Oxford and the University of Toronto (UofT), Ilyana Aït Ahmed joined the firm in September 2025.

She has trained in business law, criminal law, European law and human rights through several internships at French and Anglo-Saxon law firms, as well as assignments at a Brussels-based think tank. After obtaining her Paris Bar certificate in criminal law, she completed two internships at the Baldon Avocats law firm as part of her training at the Bar School, where she developed in-depth knowledge of strategic litigation, European and international law, as well as business law, getting familiar with the new forms of corporate responsibility.

Ilyana Aït Ahmed then worked as a trainee lawyer alongside Patrice Spinosi, a prominent French Supreme Court lawyer, whom she assisted in civil and criminal litigation before the highest national Courts (Court of Cassation, Constitutional Council) as well as European courts (European Court of Human Rights), in connection with cases involving human rights violations in particular.

She completed her training with an internship at the law firm Cambiaire & Méziani Associés, where she took part in criminal and business law cases, both in an advisory capacity and in litigation.

Working languages

French, English.