Launched this month, the Stop Arbitrary Detention Initiative, developed by 9BR Chambers and the Transnational Justice Initiative (TJI), seeks to provide access to legal assistance for individuals who have been arbitrarily deprived of their liberty.
More people are deprived of their freedom today than at any other point in history, yet access to legal assistance – particularly beyond the criminal trial stage – remains severely limited across much of the world. For many, international review may represent the only meaningful recourse to justice. The Stop Arbitrary Detention Initiative has been established to operate as an independent and accessible source of legal assistance for individuals unlawfully deprived of their liberty. It seeks to challenge individual instances of arbitrary detention and expose its root causes and entangled structural human rights violations.
The initiative has been developed by Gillian Higgins at 9BR Chambers and Viktoria Kasongo Akerø and Mandy Heer from TJI to engage with the United Nations Special Procedures to challenge cases of arbitrary detention anywhere in the world. Its primary focus will be to bring individual complaints before the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), challenging the legal basis of detention under international law and petitioning for release. Where violations are severe and time-sensitive, the initiative will also prepare urgent appeals to relevant UN Special Rapporteurs and/or the WGAD.
Training in United Nations Special Procedures will be available from April 2026.
If your firm would like to work with us on the first tranche of ten cases, please contact clerks@9brchambers.co.uk for more information.
To find out more about the Transnational Justice Initiative (TJI), click here.
