About me on Quillets of the law:

Israel, the death penalty and apartheid

Mon, 30 Mar 2026 23:08:04 +0100

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion on the status of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT).¹ It found Israel’s continuing presence was unlawful and its policies including settlement and other discriminatory policies and practices against Palestinians were unlawful.¹ Said discriminatory policies and practices were a violation of Article 3 of the Convention on Eliminating Racial Discrimination, a violation of the prohibition on Apartheid.¹ Apartheid is in essence the crime of establishing a system of racial domination of one group over another by establishing a system oppression directed towards the victim group by seriously violating their fundamental rights.²

The Advisory Opinion on the Legality of Nuclear Weapons

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 19:57:34 +0000

On the 5th of February 2026, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed in 2010 by the US and Russia (known as the New START treaty) will expire.¹ This treaty is the successor to a series of treaties signed by the US and the USSR which aimed to control the deployment of nuclear weapons.¹ With its expiration, there is no longer a single bilateral arms control agreement between Russia and the US, which had led to fears of a new nuclear arms race.

Trump, Venezuela and International Law

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 18:15:26 +0000

In January 2026, Donald Trump ordered the US military to capture Nicolas Maduro, the President of Venezuela, and his wife Cilia Flores and bring them to the US for a criminal trial for drug related offenses. This involved attacks on several sites in the country, cutting the electricity in Caracas and the targeting of several locations by US special forces.¹

Trump justified his actions by claiming Maduro allowed two groups to increase the influx of drugs into the US and designated both as Foreign Terrorist Organisations.² Trump claimed Maduro emptied the prison and ‘insane asylums’ and sent the people formerly detained there to the US.² As a result, Trump claimed operation was to allow law enforcement to arrest Maduro and Flores for drug trafficking with the aim of putting both on trial in the US.²

Kier Starmer and Genocide

Thu, 31 Jul 2025 22:06:29 +0100

In October 2023, Nick Ferrari asked the Prime Minister whether a siege and cutting off water and electricity supplies to Gaza (which was already subject to an unlawful blockade)¹ was a proportionate response to October 7? He responded by saying:

‘I think that Israel does have that right, it is an ongoing situation, obviously everything should be done within international law but I don’t want to step away from the core principles that Israel has the right to defend herself’¹

Has the definition of terrorism really stood the test of time?

Tue, 08 Jul 2025 16:04:14 +0100

In Parliament last week, Minister of State for Security Dan Jarvis stated the following during the debate about whether to proscribe Palestine Action (MPs voted in favour of Prescription as did members of the House of Lords and as a result, Palestine Action is now a Proscribed organsation):¹

‘The UK’s definition of terrorism was established in law a quarter of a century ago, and it has stood the test of time and extensive scrutiny since’

What are proscribed organisations?

Fri, 20 Jun 2025 12:30:06 +0100

Earlier this month a member of the band Kneecap has been arrested for supporting a proscribed organisation.¹ In addition, the government put legislation before parliament on the third July 2025 to proscribe Palestine Action, a direct group as a terrorist organisation.².

So what is a proscribed organisation.

A proscribed organisation is commonly known as a Terrorist organisation, is an organisation that meets a particular legal definition, explained below and as a result, the government can effectively make it impossible for them to function within the UK.

What is SIAC ?

Tue, 10 Jun 2025 13:32:50 +0100

SIAC, otherwise known as the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, is a specialist tribunal that deals with immigration cases where the decisions have some based in whole or part on national security information. SIAC has heard just over 300 cases since its creation in 1997.

In proceedings about the national security information which led to the immigration decision, a special advocate represents the interests of the appellant and the legal team that represents them in the rest of the case before SIAC cannot attend these hearings. The appellant themselves also cannot attend these proceedings.

Why the UK does not have blasphemy laws even if the press claim otherwise:

Wed, 04 Jun 2025 17:48:58 +0100

A man has been fined £240 after he set fire to a Quran outside the Turkish consulate in London. Mr Coskun is half Kurdish and half Armenian and was born in Turkey. He stated on social media that he wanted to ‘protest the Islamist Government of Erdogan who has made Turkey a base for radical Islamists and is trying to establish a Sharia regime’¹. The case was heard before a judge sitting in the Magistrates court meaning he was both the finder of fact and responsible to issuing a sentence in this case.

Why S.58 is one of the worst offences created by the Terrorism Act 2000

Mon, 02 Jun 2025 21:46:32 +0100

Strict liability offences are defined as ’the prosecution is not required to prove mens rea for one or more elements of the offence. What the defendant knew, believed, or intended is unlikely to be relevant. Guilt can therefore be established by the commission of an act regardless of mindset’¹.

Strict liability runs against the presumption in criminal law that offences require proof of actus reus and Mens Rea. In Sherras v De Rutzen, the judge stated:

Dispatches From the Dark Side: Why it remains relevant 15 years after its publication

Fri, 16 May 2025 19:02:15 +0100

In 2010, the book Dispatches from the Dark Side: On Torture and the Death of Justice was published by Gareth Peirce, a British solicitor. The book contains a series of 4 essays along with a introduction and a postscript about the war on terror and its impact on the rule of law in the UK.

Each chapter focuses on a different event during the war on terror and how the rule of law was undermined by the actions of the UK government:

For Women Ltd v the Scottish Ministers- Explained

Fri, 18 Apr 2025 21:53:01 +0100

On Wednesday 16th April 2025, the UK supreme court ruled in a case about the meaning of the word sex, woman and man in the Equality Act. The court ruled the meaning of the word sex in the Equality Act is biological. Therefore trans people including those with gender recognition certificates are not their acquired/ certificated gender for the purposes of the Equality Act. This post aims to explain the reasoning in the courts judgment in the hope this will combat the large amount of misreporting by the press about what this judgment means. It also discusses the recent announcements by the Equality and Human Rights Commission and British Transport Police about their interpretation of this judgment and why their interpretation may be wrong.

What is the Universal Postal Union?

Sat, 05 Apr 2025 18:43:40 +0100

My friend Abi wrote a blog post about the S10 standard created by the Universal Postal Union. You can find it here: https://www.akpain.net/blog/s10-upu/. As a result, I googled the union and realised it was created via a international treaty: the Treaty of Bern and pre-dates the UN by 71 years. So here is a brief outline of the treaty, how the UPU became part of the UN and what the treaty looks like today.

Abrahart v University of Bristol & its impact on disabled students

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 20:40:39 +0000

(CW: Suicide, depression, mental health)

Natasha Abrahart was a 19-year-old Physics student at the University of Bristol who took her own life in April 2018. Ms Abrahart was suffering from depression and social anxiety disorder before her death as the result of an oral presentation assessment that was part of a lab module she was taking as part of her degree. In the words of her father Dr Robert Abrahart the judge found the university ‘failed our daughter, broke the law, and contributed to her death’.¹ Had the university followed the requirements of the Equality Act, perhaps this tragedy could have been avoided.

The controversy over Axel Rudakubana's Sentencing

Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:02:44 +0000

Axel Rudakubana was sentenced to life with a minimum of 52 years for a number of criminal offences. These include the murder of three girls in Southport on 29 July 2024: Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe, and Alice da Silva Aguiar and the attempted murder of 10 others. (1) Furthermore, he was also sentenced for possession of a knife in a public place, production of a biological toxin and possession of information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing, or preparing, an act of terrorism, contrary to Section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000. (1)