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10 March 2017 / Khawar Qureshi KC
Issue: 7737 / Categories: Features , Public
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The highs & lows of public international law

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Khawar Qureshi QC reviews the headline-catching public international law cases before the English Courts in 2016

  • Abuse of immunity considered.
  • Enforcement of judgments and awards and the “commercial” exception.
  • Act of state/non-justiciability and a state as a trustee discussed.

Last year saw the Supreme Court confirm the limited scope for judicial review of a decision to include a person’s name on the UN sanctions list (Youssef v SSHD [2016] UKSC 3 27/1/16). The UK policy of recognising states rather than governments was vividly illustrated in the long running saga concerning disputes as to which rival faction in Libya (“Tripoli” or “Tobruk”) controls the Libyan sovereign wealth fund (Hassan Bouhadi v Abdulmagid Breish [2016] EWHC 602 (Blair J) 17/3/16). The Divisional Court comprehensively reviewed the Customary International Law rule reflected in the common law, which requires a state which had agreed to receive a special mission to secure the inviolability and immunity from criminal jurisdiction of the mission’s members during the period of the mission

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The long-running Mazur saga edged towards its finale as the Court of Appeal heard arguments on whether non-solicitors can ‘conduct litigation’. Writing in NLJ this week, Professor Dominic Regan of City Law School reports from a packed courtroom where 16 wigs watched Nick Bacon KC argue that Mr Justice Sheldon had failed to distinguish between ‘tasks and responsibilities’

The Court of Appeal has slammed the brakes on claimants trying to swap defendants after limitation has expired. In Adcamp LLP v Office Properties and BDB Pitmans v Lee [2026] EWCA Civ 50, it overturned High Court rulings that had allowed substitutions under s 35(6)(b) of the Limitation Act 1980, reports Sarah Crowther of DAC Beachcroft in this week's NLJ

Cheating in driving tests is surging—and courts are responding firmly. Writing in NLJ this week, Neil Parpworth of De Montfort Law School charts a rise in impersonation and tech-assisted fraud, with 2,844 attempts recorded in a year
As AI-generated ‘deepfake’ images proliferate, the law may already have the tools to respond. In NLJ this week, Jon Belcher of Excello Law argues that such images amount to personal data processing under UK GDPR
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