The Weekly Round Up: Women Peace and Security failures, asylum accommodation overcrowding, and deportation to Afghanistan blocked by ECHR
30 March 2026
In the news
On Monday, the House of Commons International Development Committee (IDC) published a report which found that the Government had failed to deliver on its Women, Peace and Security (WPS) policy commitments.
According to the Peace under pressure: Protecting WPS report, the UK’s willingness or ability to facilitate high-level discussion within the UN on WPS appears weak, despite commitments to the WPS agenda [24]. The report also raised concerns that the UK Government is “at risk of inflicting damage to its reputation as a WPS penholder and convenor” [27].
The Committee further pointed to the reduction in development and gender expertise within the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) as a significant hindrance to the WPS agenda [3]. Additionally, the Government was found to have reduced funding and resourcing for WPS initiatives [4].
The publication of the report comes at a time of the highest number of conflicts since 1946 [11] coupled with a growing global “anti-gender” movement and backlash against gender equality [13].
In other news:
- In a landmark ruling, the California Superior Court ruled that Meta and Google were liable for creating addictive products that caused the deterioration of a young woman’s mental health. The social media companies were ordered to pay $3 million in compensatory damages.
- The European Parliament plenary endorsed the opening of negotiations with the Council on a new legal framework for the return of people without the right to stay in the UK. The proposed Return Regulation would enable Member States to deport people to countries with no prior ties and require Member States to put in place measures to detect people staying irregularly in their territory.
- The Metropolitan Police revised their enforcement approach in response to displays of support for Palestine Action, reversing their interim position – adopted after the High Court ruling that its proscription was unlawful – not to arrest its supporters.
In the courts
The High Court ruled that the Home Secretary was in breach of her statutory duty to provide “adequate” initial accommodation (IA) for asylum seeking families [82] and [102].
Although IA is intended as a “stopgap” [2], asylum seeking people, including the Claimants, have been accommodated in IA for as long as 3 years, often in hotel rooms or hostels [3].
Bates J held that a hotel room provided for an asylum seeker and her family is not a “dwelling” for the purposes of Part X of the Housing Act 1985 (HA), on the basis that the accommodation is a temporary interim measure [34].
However, Part X HA is not “entirely irrelevant” when considering whether hotel accommodation meets the “adequate” standard, as provided by ss. 95-96 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 (IA) [42].
The case stemmed from an application for judicial review of the adequacy of IA provided for a prolonged period to two asylum seeking mothers, SH and BWO, with dependent children. Bates J described the accommodation arrangements for SH – who shared a hotel room with her husband, their young school-age child and a newborn baby – as “extraordinarily stressful” [82]. The Court held that BWO’s living circumstances were “incompatible with personal dignity” because she was accommodated in a two-bed hotel room with her two sons of sexually mature ages and had to share a bed with one of her sons [100].
Bates J also confirmed that where the Home Secretary refuses a request for accommodation in a particular geographical area, she has a duty to identify the asylum seeking person’s needs and ensure that the accommodation outside the requested area is adequate to meet those needs [95]. There is no requirement for asylum seeking people to demonstrate “exceptional circumstances” to satisfy such a request [94].
Additionally, Bates J raised concerns that there was a lack of a specified minimum standards regarding the minimum amount of space that should be provided for families in hotel accommodation, prior to the Space Standards Paper circulated in June 2024. The Court held that the lack of policy or guidance had the potential to contribute to accommodation falling below the “adequate” standard [48].
Over 35,000 asylum seeking people – including 4,300 families – were being accommodated in hotels for IA purposes in September 2025 [3].
DM v Sweden (App no 32694/23) [2026] ECHR
On Thursday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled that the deportation of an Afghan national would be a violation of the right to freedom from inhuman or degrading treatment as guaranteed by Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights [199].
The case concerned an order by the Swedish authorities to remove an Afghan national, DM, from Sweden, following several unsuccessful applications for asylum since 2015 [5 – 59]. DM alleged that, if deported, he would risk being ill-treated in Afghanistan [132].
In the first ECHR judgment of this type since the Taliban takeover in 2021, the Court held that an assessment of whether there was a real risk of ill-treatment had to be made on the basis of all relevant factors, considered cumulatively. The Court found that the Swedish authorities had erred when separately considering the individual factors, including the “serious and fragile” security situation in Afghanistan, the deterioration of human-rights in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover and DM’s Hazara ethnicity [197].
Furthermore, the Court was not satisfied that the assessment undertaken by the Swedish authorities was “sufficiently and adequately” supported by domestic and international materials [157].
The Court observed that most European States had not carried out any involuntary returns to Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover [160].
The Court granted interim measures under Rule 39 of the Rules of the Court, until the judgment becomes final [199 – 201].
On the UKHRB
- Kian Leong Tan analyses the High Court’s recent decision in R (Ansari) v Chief Constable of North Wales Police [2026] EWHC 472 (Admin), in which the Court clarified the level of disclosure required in challenges concerning the seizure and inspection of mobile phone data under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
On Law Pod UK
- In the first of a series of Law Pod UK episodes relating to investigations, Marina Wheeler KC speaks to Jim Duffy about the evolving role of barristers in this area.
