The Weekly Round Up: 80th Anniversary of David Maxwell Fyfe’s Nuremberg Speech, EU Return Hubs, Terrorist Connections, and Retrospective Denial of Parole
9 September 2026
The UK Human Rights Blog is moving to Substack.
From 19th October, all new articles will be published exclusively on our Substack, and no new content will appear on our current website.
To stay up to date with our latest articles and insights, please subscribe here: https://substack.com/@ukhumanrightsblog
In the news
Songs of the People mark 80 years since David Maxwell Fyfe’s Nuremberg speech
29 August 2026 marked the 80th anniversary of David Maxwell Fyfe’s affirmation of universal human rights in his speech at the Nuremberg Trials. In honour of the anniversary, Songs of the People staged Sue Casson’s Dreams of Peace and Freedom at St James’s Piccadilly and are launching a new podcast.
The podcast is entitled ‘Could we do more to secure human rights?’ after the topic first discussed 75 years ago by a panel including David and Eleanor Roosevelt in a BBC Home Service broadcast. The hosts are Maxwell Fyfe’s great-grandchildren, Lily and Robert. They interview a range of leading lawyers, academics, educationalists, activists, parliamentarians, religious leaders, charities and organisations, including Lord David Alton, Chair of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, and Lady Brenda Hale, former President of the Supreme Court.
For more information about the original broadcast and for a thread with further description, see here and here.
EU Member states progressing towards ‘return hubs’
Five EU Member States have announced further progress towards setting up third-country ‘return hubs’ to address irregular migration.
Representatives from the governments of Germany, Austria, Greece, Denmark and the Netherlands met on Friday 4 September, agreeing plans to move towards a deal with a non-EU country by the end of 2026. No host nation has been formally named, although some reports indicate that discussions have been centred on Uganda and Rwanda.
Critics have raised human rights concerns. The Council of Europe has claimed that return hubs create ‘considerable human rights risks’. Going further, Amnesty International describes its position as being that return hubs ‘cannot be implemented in a human rights-compliant manner’.
Palestine Action activists to appeal against sentence
Palestine Action activists known as the Filton 4 have sought permission to appeal against custodial sentences imposed on them for causing criminal damage to an Elbit Systems facility. According to reporting, the activists contend that the sentencing judge erred in finding their offences were aggravated by a terrorist connection under the Sentencing Act 2020, section 69.
For section 69 purposes, ‘terrorism’ has the meaning given under the Terrorism Act 2000, section 1. Accordingly, the judge directed himself (at [19]) that in the circumstances there would a terrorist connection if the offence: (a) involved serious damage to property; (b) was designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public; and (c) was for the purpose of advancing a political or ideological cause. He proceeded to find that all three elements were present.
That finding was criticised in some quarters. Amnesty International issued a statement claiming that ‘criminal damage has never been treated as terrorism within the UK justice system before and it is dangerous to treat them as the same thing’. A leading lawyer was reported arguing that the use of section 69 amounted to a ‘constitutional threat’ as it involved ‘recategorising the offence without a trial’. On the other hand, another prominent commentator argued that the finding ‘didn’t make much difference in the end’ as the judge said in his sentencing remarks (at [4.10]):
It is an aggravating factor that the offending had a terrorist connection. In measuring the increase to the sentence on account of that factor I take account of the fact that you did not intend to injure any person, and that part of your motivation in taking action was to prevent the death and suffering of Palestinian civilians, including children. That significantly reduces the increase in the sentence that would otherwise be appropriate.
The judge adopted a starting point of 5 years’ custody (50% of the statutory maximum) and applied a two-year uplift to take account of aggravation ([4.9], [4.12]). After factoring in mitigation, he ordered custodial terms of between 5 and 6 years and sentenced one offender to a further consecutive term for causing GBH to a police officer ([8.1]-[8.4]).
In the Strasbourg court
Retrospective denial of parole violates Article 7
In a Chamber judgment, the ECtHR has held that retrospective application of an irreducible life sentence regime violated Article 7 ECHR. The case is Asciutto & Ors v Italy (Application no. 23169/16 & ors, judgment of 03 September 2026).
The applicants were prisoners serving sentences for mafia-related offences. Having initially received reducible life sentences, they lost their entitlement to parole under section 4 bis of the Italian Prison Administration Act as amended in 1992. They had two main complaints: first, that the section 4 bis regime violated Article 3 because it generated an irreducible life sentence without possibility of review; and second, that the regime had been applied retrospectively in violation of Article 7.
In relation to the first complaint, the ECtHR recalled its previous finding that the section 4 bis regime violated Article 3: Marcello Viola v Italy (No 2) (Application no. 77633/16, judgment of 13 June 2019). In the wake of that judgment, the Italian courts and legislature had sought to reform the regime in order to supply a meaningful possibility of review. The court considered those reforms and concluded (at [192]) that the regime was no longer, of itself, incompatible with the Convention.
In relation to the second complaint, the court reiterated (at [198]) that Article 7 applies to ‘penalty’ measures but not mere ‘execution’ or ‘enforcement’ measures. Acknowledging (at [199]) that the distinction may not always be clear cut, the court concluded (at [216]) that the shift from reducible to irreducible life sentences was a sufficient alteration in the applicants’ penalties to found an Article 7 complaint.
The court proceeded to determine that Article 7 had been violated on two grounds. First, the section 4 bis regime had been applied despite not being in force at the time of most of the applicants’ offences, whereas Article 7 “unconditionally prohibits” ([246]) retrospective application of the criminal law to the accused’s disadvantage ([253]). Second, despite being in force at the time, the section 4 bis regime had been retrospectively applied to one applicant’s sentence on the basis of case law that did not develop until some 10 years after the conviction, thus violating the principle of legality ([262]).
On the UKHRB
David Hart KC considers the Court of Appeal’s judgment in Thomas v Nicholas [2026] EWCA Civ 847, which will go to the Supreme Court for appeal. The case raises issues about the conceptual boundary line between nuisance and negligence in the context of the rule about hypersensitive activities.
On Law Pod UK
In the latest episode Rosalind English discusses with Robert Kellar KC and Marcus Coates-Walker of 1 Crown Office the extent to which harms done to patients by “medical devices” enhanced by AI can be predicted and litigated in the future, when this becomes the norm. The blueprint for allocation of liability in this context is set out in the National Commission for the Regulation of AI in Healthcare’s latest document, published on the 10th of September.
