Human rights and supporting the rule of law

'As a leading international law firm, we believe that we have a responsibility to promote, protect and uphold the rule of law, and within it human rights. Our commitment is particularly reinforced through the pro bono work we take on. We feel this is important work in an ever-changing world where torture, repression and the denial of access to justice remain a threat to individual liberties.'
Paul Lomas, partner with responsibility for our pro bono strategy and member of our community and pro bono committee and CSR strategy group

We work with a number of human rights charities, including Amicus, Reprieve, Justice, Liberty, Fair Trials International and REDRESS, with an emphasis on supporting work that ensures people are given a fair trial, that corrects a manifest injustice, and helps establish a legal right. As part of our trainee programme, we also provide a secondment to Liberty and we run a paralegal rota at Fair Trials International.

Our award-winning human rights programme is extensive and wide-ranging. We assist those facing the death penalty in the US and the Caribbean; we also undertake cases addressing key human rights issues.

In 2008, our London office helped Liberty and Justice with an intervention in the House of Lords case EM (Lebanon) v Secretary of State for the Home Department. The Appeal was successful – this is thought to be the first time in European legal history that a higher court has found that a future, foreign breach of a non-absolute human right would be sufficiently serious as to prohibit the victim's removal to the country where there is a real risk the breach would take place.

Focus on extraordinary rendition

In 2008, we began working on ways to tackle extraordinary rendition – the practice of transferring individuals to different jurisdictions outside of the judicial process for the purposes of indefinite detention and torture. Our work in this area evolved out of our collaboration on a number of events highlighting this issue over the past few years. In 2006 and 2007 we hosted both the London and European hearings of the International Commission of Jurists' eminent jurists panel on terrorism, counter-terrorism and human rights. In 2007, we also hosted a roundtable on extraordinary rendition involving MPs, MEPs, human rights organisations and lawyers acting for the detained. Our understanding of extraordinary rendition expanded as we reviewed the background of those detained in Guantánamo Bay through our Amicus Briefs in the case of Hamdan v Rumsfeld and Boumediene v Bush. In 2008 the US Supreme Court gave its judgment in the case of Boumediene v Bush, ruling that Guantánamo Bay detainees have the constitutional privilege of habeas corpus. We submitted an Amicus Brief in this case on behalf of 383 UK parliamentarians.

In 2008 we applied our knowledge of extraordinary rendition in a number of ways: for example, we began advising the All Party Parliamentary Group on Renditions, on issues arising from extraordinary rendition through UK jurisdiction. Our IT department helped the charity Reprieve develop its Renditions database. We also assisted Reprieve with the case of Binyam Mohamed, who was held in Guantánamo Bay from September 2004 to February 2009. Trainees from across practice groups in our London office reviewed documents that helped Reprieve prepare its various cases in relation to Mr Mohamed's rendition to Morocco, the evidence of his torture and his subsequent transfer to Guantánamo Bay.

We also acted for the charity REDRESS on an Amicus Brief before the US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on the right to redress for torture in the case of Arar v [    ], which concerned a Canadian citizen who was subject to extraordinary rendition to Syria. In September 2008, we hosted a conference for REDRESS on Reintegration and Reparation for Victims of Rendition.

See here for further details of our human rights work on Death Row.