Phil Shiner

Phil Shiner leads the team at Public Interest Lawyers (PIL). He is a lawyer with an international and national reputation for his work on issues concerning international, environmental and human rights law. He has been practicing as a solicitor in the UK since 1981. He has written and spoken at international and national conferences on all the areas of law covered in PIL's present work.

In addition to years of experience in claimant-based environmental litigation against waste incinerators, landfill sites and open-cast coal mines - acted in a wide range of significant environmental cases including:

• Ghost Ships (a case that successfully challenged the importation and decommissioning of toxic US ships for disposal in the Hartlepool, in the North England)
• Kennedy (a case that has gone before the Court of Appeal challenging the HSE’s decision to allow the importation of asbestos aboard the infamous French aircraft carrier Clemenceau set for disposal in the UK)
• Pascoe (the first case to successfully challenge a compulsory purchase order made under the Government's Housing Market Renewal ("Pathfinder") Initiative).
• Mortell (a further challenge, currently listed for three days in October before the Court of Appeal, against a Pathfinder CPO in Derker).

He has also acted in some of the most constitutionally significant human rights test cases including:

• Al Skeini (a case about whether the Human Rights Act and European Convention on Human Rights applied whilst the UK occupied south east Iraq
• Al-Jedda (a case also in the House of Lords about whether a Security Council resolution can override domestic human rights legislation)
• Gentle et Al (a case concerning the rights of the families of soldiers killed in Iraq to an independent enquiry, which would have included examining the legality of the military orders)
• Hasan (a case of Palestinians challenging the UK government’s policy of continuing to export arms related products to Israel)
• Nuclear Information Service (a case concerning the legality of the recent decision to replace Trident). 

He was Liberty/Justice Human Rights Lawyer of the year 2004 for his work on Iraq and was the Law Society’s Solicitor of the Year 2007.  He is an honorary professor at the Metropolitan University of London and a research fellow at the London School of Economics.  He has recently edited a book for Hart publications, published in September 2008, on legal issues arising from the Iraq war and occupation.