Consultants

Text Box: Keir Starmer Q.C. Keir Starmer Q.C. has a mixed criminal and civil practice. He specializes in Human Rights Law and has conducted cases at the highest level and all over the world in this field. He has appeared in 12 cases before the House of Lords, 16 cases before the Privy Council and he has also appeared in many cases before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica and the African Commission on Human and People Rights in Pretoria. In 2000, Keir Starmer won the Justice/Liberty human rights lawyer of the year award. In 2005, he won the Bar Council’s Sydney Elland Goldsmith award for his outstanding contribution to pro bono work in challenging the death penalty throughout the Caribbean, Uganda, Kenya and Malawi. Guy Mansfield Q.C., then Chairman of the Bar Council, commented: “Keir Starmer QC has for many years made a major contribution to changing the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth on a fundamental matter – life and death”. In 2006, Keir Starmer was identified by the Lawyer magazine as one of the Hot 100 in the legal profession with the comment that “with neither the quality nor the level of work abating, Starmer’s star is continuing to rise. Keir Starmer has written several legal textbooks on Human Rights, including European Human Rights Law and the Human Rights Manual for Africa. He is the author of the human rights section in Blackstone’s Criminal Practice. He is a research fellow at Essex University and lectures periodically at the London School of Economics (LSE), London University. In 2003 Keir Starmer was appointed as human rights advisor to the Policing Board in Northern Ireland. In that capacity he works with the Policing Board to ensure that the Police Service of Northern Ireland fully complies with its obligations under the Human Rights Act 1998. Along with his co-advisor, he has published four reports in Northern Ireland: two annual Human Rights Reports and two Special Reports on particular policing operations. Working closely with senior officers in the police service, he has secured their commitment to respond positively to all the recommendations made in those reports.