Matrix Chambers

Philip specialises in international human rights law, both in his capacity as a practising human rights lawyer and as professor of human rights law at Middlesex University. He co-founded and until 2022 was Director of the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC), based at Middlesex University, which mentors and supports human rights lawyers and NGOs in the former Soviet region and which has litigated many ground-breaking cases which have set precedents internationally. He lectures, researches and publishes widely in the field of international human rights law, in the UK and in Europe.

Philip qualified as a solicitor in 1991 (Law Society of England and Wales) and is a former Legal Director of Liberty (NCCL) and the Kurdish Human Rights Project. Since 2018, Philip has acted as Co-Supervisor of the Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project (based at Middlesex University) whose team of Turkish/Kurdish lawyers provide support and mentoring to human rights lawyers and NGOs in Turkey, and submit third party interventions to UN treaty bodies and the European Court.

He is the author of ‘Taking a Case to the European Court of Human Rights’, 4th ed., Oxford University Press, 2017 and co-author (with Professor Alice Donald) of ‘Parliaments and the European Court of Human Rights’ (Oxford University Press, 2016).

In 2021 Philip was a member of an expert group involved in drafting a new set of ‘soft law’ international standards: the ‘Nijmegen Principles and Guidelines on Interim Measures’ (urgent orders delivered by international courts). From 2015 to 2020 he was Co-Investigator on the ESRC-funded ‘Human Rights Law Implementation Project’ (Universities of Bristol, Middlesex, Essex and Pretoria and the Open Society Justice Initiative): examining human rights law implementation in nine states across Europe, Africa and the Americas. He has also been commissioned to carry out research for inter-governmental organisations and national bodies, such as the Council of Europe, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (UK). In 2023-2024 he was commissioned (together with Professor Helen Duffy) by the Wellspring Philanthropic Fund (US) to research the impact and role of strategic litigation and prosecutions in ensuring accountability for war and other serious crimes and justice for victims, survivors and affected communities.