Audrey Glover was born c.1942, the daughter of Robert John Victor Lush and Frances Lucy de la Roche. She was educated at St Anne’s College, Sanderstead, Surrey, and King’s College London (LLB Hons). In 1971, she married Edward Charles Glover, having two sons and two daughters (and one son deceased).

Glover was called to the Bar, Gray’s Inn, 1961, and once she had graduated from King's College, practised as a barrister in the Lord Chancellor’s Department, 1965–67. She then joined the Diplomatic Service in 1967, and her Foreign Office career included: Assistant Legal Adviser, 1967-71; Assistant (Temporary), Attorney General’s Department, Australia, 1972–73; Adviser on British Law, Library of Congress, Washington, 1974–77; Legal Adviser (Assistant), Foreign and Commonwealth Office, 1978–85; Legal Adviser, British Military Government, Berlin [Germany], 1985–89; Legal Counsellor, FCO, and UK Agent to EC and Court of Human Rights, 1990–94; Director (with rank of Ambassador), OSCE Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, Warsaw [Poland], 1994–97.

Once she left the Diplomatic Service, Glover served as Leader of the UK Delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission, 1998–2003. She was Senior Adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraq and to Iraqi Minister of Human Rights, 2004–06, and has also been Head of the OSCE Election Observation Mission in many parts of the world from 2004 onwards.