I spoke at Stormont this week at the launch of the annual report of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission. My theme was the need to look at the UK's membership of the European Convention on Human Rights not just through a domestic lens, but in the international context of creeping illiberalism and authoritarianism. [...]
Many people are more learned than I am in European human rights law, and many others more thoroughly immersed in UK national security. But having spent significant time in each of those worlds over the past 30 years, including through my work as Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation and as a practitioner in Strasbourg, [...]
When the celebrated lawyer Gareth Peirce suggested that I drop in on "Mr Othman" (Abu Qatada) for a cup of tea at his house, I jumped at the chance. Charismatic even in a grey sweatsuit, he talked with animation about everything from the politics of the Middle East to the awkwardness of being recognised in his local (Stanmore) branch of Tesco. [...]
My article about Brexit and Security ("Terrorism: the EU picture") has just been published in Counsel Magazine. In summary: The leadership role in the EU exercised by the UK in matters relating to security (in particular counter-terrorism) will inevitably be lost after Brexit. There are reasons to hope that broadly satisfactory arrangements can be made for [...]
I spoke in October 2016 to the Legal Affairs and Political Affairs Committees of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, as part of its #nohatenofear campaign. It was an honour to share the platform with the French journalist Antoine Leiris and the Italian teacher Luciana Milani, both of whom lost close relatives in the Bataclan attack in Paris last [...]
