Speeches and articles

One for the Lawyers

I lectured last week to the Hart judicial review conference on recent cases concerning terrorism and surveillance.  Most (though not all) are judicial review cases.

Attached, in case of interest to any law students, practising lawyers or others, are:

Also of possible interest to lawyers is this video of a webcast I did for the International Bar Association on 30 November: it is a long interview by a BBC journalist, interspersed with questions from around the world, which touches on legal issues in terrorism, extremism and surveillance.

You can read a shortened version of the interview here.

Going Global

The International Bar Association has invited me to give a 1-hour live webcast and Q&A on 30 November, from 1400 London time.

If you would like to participate by asking me a question, please register here.  You don’t need to be a lawyer, or an IBA member.

You can get a sense for how I see the post of the UK’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, and what I think about current issues in counter-terrorism, counter-extremism and surveillance, from this short film made for BBC TV’s Daily Politics, and this 30-minute interview with the legal journalist Joshua Rozenberg QC. Read more…

Terrorism, Tolerance and Human Rights

I spoke yesterday 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 November.  We each answered questions from the parliamentarians present.

A transcript of my remarks is here: terrorism-tolerance-and-human-rights

Also available is a webcast of the session, and a short video summary of my contribution given afterwards.

Summing up

I have almost 10 months (and three reports) still to go in post.  But this short article from the May 2016 edition of Counsel, published today:

  • takes a personal look at more than five years spent reviewing the terrorism laws,
  • comments on the transition from QC to Independent Reviewer, and
  • makes some general points about the threat and our response – including in Europe.

Read more…

Brexit: the security dimension

This brief contribution to the Brexit debate, founded on my own observations in Brussels and in UK ports, was published in Prospect on 3 March 2016.

If the website claims you have reached your monthly limit, which it seems very ready to do, you may have to feed it your email address.

UPDATE 31 March 2016:

Some of the same ground was covered in a 7-minute interview (with Richard Walton, from 19 minutes) by Eddie Mair on BBC Radio 4’s PM programme on 23 March.

I gave an interview at about the same time to the International Bar Association on security, Europe and human rights, which they have made available as a podcast.

Drawing on 30 years’ experience of EU law, I gave a much wider-ranging account of the Brexit debate to an international audience in early July 2015, at the European University Institute in Florence.

UPDATE 28 May 2016:

My detailed thoughts on Europe and counter-terrorism are in my Graham Turnbull Lecture, given at the Law Society in April and now published on their website.   At paragraphs 29-56 I discuss Europe as a source of comparisons, a source of legal obligations and a vehicle for cooperation.

The IP Bill has landed

This article, with headline comments on the Investigatory Powers Bill, appeared in the Daily Telegraph on the day after the Bill was launched.

To help track the Bill, a basic guide to the parliamentary process is here.

Film and Daily Politics interview

On 1 March, BBC2’s Daily Politics screened a 5-minute film about my work, made on location in London and Bolton, and an unusually long and varied interview (21-38 minutes).

Topics discussed included the state of counter-terrorism legislation, comparisons with France, UK leadership in Europe, review of the Prevent duty and the Investigatory Powers Bill – which was introduced to Parliament at about the time the programme was on air.

Address to the MCB

I was the guest of the Muslim Council of Britain today at its ground-breaking conference in London on “Terrorism and Extremism: how should British Muslims respond?”

Some of the many interesting people I met there asked me for a copy of my short address.  Here it is, as well as I could remember it.

TERRORISM AND EXTREMISM – MCB keynote

The work of the Independent Reviewer – European edition

This article on the work of the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation has just been published in the New Journal of European Criminal Law.  It is reproduced here by the kind permission of the publishers.

The history of the role is summarised, before describing the nature of the work and the way in which successive Independent Reviewers have influenced Government, either directly or through Parliament and the courts.

It is a shortened and updated version, prepared for an international audience, of an article published in Public Law in July 2014.

EDIT

I gave a 10-minute interview about the role on Canadian television on 12 January 2016: you can listen to the podcast here, from 54:00.