Who Is the Law Actually For?

My answer has always been the same. Everyone. And I have spent my life proving it.

I am Jodi-Ann Quarrie — International Human Rights Lawyer, and the Executive Producer and Anchor of Lead Story on CVM Television. I am the only Caribbean broadcast journalist who is also an international human rights lawyer. That is not a coincidence. It is a conviction.

"The law is for everyone. And I have spent my life proving it."

The Legal Formation

My legal journey took me from the University of the West Indies, and the Norman Manley Law School, to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, to the University of Notre Dame — where I became the first CARICOM attorney ever admitted to the LL.M. in International Human Rights Law — to the United Nations in Geneva, where I became the first Caribbean and Jamaican attorney selected as a Fellow for People of African Descent.

I have worked on the CARICOM Ten Point Plan for Reparatory Justice. I have audited sixty years of Caribbean death penalty jurisprudence for the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Berlin. I have been invited by Jamaica's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade to contribute to the country's Universal Periodic Review consultations before the UN Human Rights Council.

In 2025, Notre Dame Law School honoured me with the Alvin McKenna Alumnus of the Year Award, making me the first LLM, the first CARICOM National, and the first Jamaican to ever receive it in the school’s history.

"I have operated at every level of the international human rights chain — from Geneva to Washington to the domestic consultation room in Kingston."

The Broadcast

Every evening, I bring all of it to the desk.

On Lead Story, my editorial mandate is simple and non-negotiable: every story must answer for what it means to Jamaica. That question — the Jamaican Angle — shapes every broadcast I produce, every guest I select, every question I ask.

"The broadcast is not separate from the legal work. It is the legal work — delivered nightly, in public, to the people who need it most."

Beyond the Desk

Beyond broadcasting, I have led the American Chamber of Commerce of Jamaica as its CEO, directed national advocacy campaigns at Jamaicans for Justice, and served as Board Chair of Women's Media Watch Jamaica — because the fight for press freedom and the fight for gender equity in media are not separate conversations.

In 2024, I took Jamaican high school students into the Supreme Court and the Parish Court, walking them through landmark Caribbean cases — because if the law is going to serve the people, the people need to understand how it works. And that education has to start early, and it has to start here.

"If the law is going to serve the people, the people need to understand how it works."

The Languages of Home and the World

I work in three languages — English, Spanish, and Jamaican Creole. All native to me in different ways.

English is the language of the institutions I have moved through. Spanish carried me through fellowship work across the Americas. Jamaican Creole is the language of home — and I name it deliberately, because the people I do this work for speak it fluently, and they deserve to be spoken to, not spoken at.

The Recognition

In 2019, MIPAD named me among the Most Influential 100 Under 40 People of African Descent in the world. In 2023, Norman Manley Law School recognised me as a Distinguished Alumni. In 2025, Notre Dame Law School presented me with the Alvin McKenna Alumnus of the Year Award.

I hold these honours not as destinations but as obligations — to the communities that shaped me, to the institutions that invested in me, and to the work that is nowhere near finished.

"I came home. I built something. And the work is nowhere near finished."

Lawyer. Broadcaster. Advocate. Built in Jamaica. Heard everywhere it matters.