Iain Edwards > 1MCB > London, England > Barrister Profile

Iain Edwards

020 7452 8900 crimeclerks@1mcb.com View profile View profile View profile

Work Department

Crime; International Crime and Extradition

Position

Iain is a seasoned and compassionate barrister specialising in serious crime. He is a fighter who always goes the extra mile for his clients, whether before domestic or international jurisdictions. Iain represents defendants charged with the gravest of offences and has a particular expertise in international crimes, firearms, and immigration-related cases. He is developing a strong practice in extradition. Iain prides himself on his meticulous preparation and intelligent trial strategy. Clients regularly comment favourably on his down-to-earth, unpretentious approach.

Since 2009, Iain has divided his busy defence practice between domestic and international criminal work. For the last five years, he has been one of a small handful of barristers ranked by The Legal 500 as a Tier 1 leading junior in international crime and extradition.

Iain is currently assigned as defence counsel before the International Criminal Court in The Hague. His client is alleged to be a notorious commander of the Arab militia in Darfur, Sudan commonly known as the Janjaweed. He is charged with 31 counts of murder, rape, forcible transfer, persecution and torture as crimes against humanity, and numerous war crimes, all arising out of the conflict in West Darfur between August 2003 and April 2004.

Iain also represents a client who was granted early release from his sentence by the UN International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in Arusha, Tanzania, in his efforts to be permanently resettled in a safe country. Until recently, he was assigned for the defence of a client at trial and on appeal in a multi-hander contempt case before the Mechanism.

Iain has a developing interest in all areas of national and international sanctions work, including before the UN’s Ombudsperson to the ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee, and under the UK’s new Magnitsky regime introduced through the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020.

 Iain is accredited by the Bar Standards Board to undertake public access work. 

He is regularly invited to provide training and to speak at international conferences, particularly on defence issues.

Guest lecturer, Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas: the defence before international criminal jurisdictions (The Hague, March 2022);

· Guest lecturer, European Law Students’ Association, University of Groningen: international criminal justice: from prosecution to defence (Groningen, February 2022);

· Judicial trainer/mentor, UK Embassy project: Iraq counter-terrorism prosecutions and investigations (Erbil, December 2020-April 2021);

· Guest lecturer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam: fair trial rights and challenges for the defence (Amsterdam, January 2021);

Career

Called to the Bar 2000

Languages

Fluent in French

Education

• LL.M. Public International Law (specialising in international criminal law, UN law, and international human rights law), University College London (1999)
• LL.B. (Hons.) Law with French Law and Language, University of East Anglia (1996)
• DEUF (Diploma in French Law), Université Jean Moulin, Lyon III, France (1995)