Security Articles
Reporting Terrorism
This is the text of a lecture I delivered to journalism students and others at the University of Essex on 11 February 2019. Among the issues covered are the appearance vs the reality of terrorism in the West, [...]
The Fly in the China Shop
I was invited to The Hague last month to deliver the Hague Lecture on International Law, to an invited audience of diplomats, international judges and others at the British Embassy. No expert on public international law, I [...]
Human rights and the future of surveillance
I spoke on this subject to the Human Rights Law Association on 25 October, at a meeting held to consider the effect of the 13 September 2018 Big Brother Watch judgment of the first section of [...]
Who Governs the Internet?
Counsel, the magazine of the Bar of England and Wales, has published my article on the subject of internet content regulation. When I submitted the original version, just before the Cambridge Analytica revelations in March, the [...]
Watching the watchers – implementation stocktake
The Home Secretary wrote to me today - just in time for my evidence session this afternoon before the Home Affairs Select Committee - setting out the terms for a new assignment. That will be a "stocktake" of the [...]
Shades of Independent Review
This new working paper, Shades of Independent Review (draft updated April 2018) is the sequel to a 2014 article (reproduced by kind permission of Public Law) on the responsibilities and influence of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation (IRTL). The [...]
Report into MI5/Police intelligence-handling reviews
The Home Secretary has today published my report (submitted to her on 2 November) into the nine internal reviews by MI5 and Counter-Terrorism Police of their handling of intelligence prior to this year's terrorist attacks [...]