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Ben Keith, co-founder of IHR Advisors and a barrister at 5 St Andrew’s Hill, has been ranked a Star Individual for Extradition in the Chambers and Partners UK Bar 2027 guide, published on 15 October 2026. It is the fourteenth year Chambers has ranked him for extradition at the London Bar. He also holds a Band 3 ranking for Immigration for the fifth year in a row.

What Chambers UK Bar 2027 says about Ben Keith

Star Individual is the highest ranking Chambers awards. It sits above Band 1 and goes to a small number of barristers in each field. This year’s editorial describes Ben as an ‘exceptionally well-regarded barrister’ with experience of complex and unusual extradition cases, from European arrest warrants to war crimes and political corruption.

The clients and peers interviewed by Chambers researchers were more direct. One said simply that ‘Ben Keith is at the very top of his game.’ Another called him ‘a go-to barrister for all things extradition’. A third put it this way: ‘The accolades Ben gets are deserved. He is incredibly hardworking and is excellent.’

His immigration ranking reflects a practice on both sides of the courtroom. He acts for the Home Secretary as well as for applicants in appeals and judicial reviews, and has appeared in important Court of Appeal cases. Sources describe him as thorough and experienced, with excellent client care, and a clear sense of which arguments will persuade in a complex case.

Why an extradition ranking matters for people facing INTERPOL notices

An INTERPOL Red Notice is a request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition. A challenge before the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF) therefore tends to turn on the same questions as an extradition hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court. Is the prosecution politically motivated? Could the person get a fair trial? Does the requesting state’s material describe a genuine offence?

Answering those questions well depends on knowing how the requesting state’s courts and prosecutors actually behave. That is why one comment in this year’s research matters so much to our clients: Ben is ‘well connected and deeply knowledgeable across a broad range of jurisdictions’. His practice is weighted towards post-Soviet states, the Middle East and the Far East, where Red Notices and extradition requests are most often turned against dissidents, journalists and business rivals. He also writes about this work, as co-founder and editor of Red Notice Monitor and, with Rhys Davies, co-author of INTERPOL Law and Practice (Sweet & Maxwell, 2026).

The immigration ranking matters for the same people. Someone targeted through INTERPOL often needs protection in the United Kingdom as well as deletion of the notice, and the two cases frequently draw on the same evidence of persecution. Ben has acted in asylum and human rights claims for political and military leaders, human rights defenders and journalists facing transnational repression, and has argued cases before the UK Supreme Court, the European Court of Human Rights, UN bodies and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

We are grateful to the clients and colleagues who spoke to Chambers and Partners researchers this year. Ben’s full profile can be read on the Chambers UK Bar 2027 website.

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About the Author

Áine Macdonald Paralegal

Before joining IHR Advisors, Áine worked at the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) as a Programme Coordinator and as a lawyer in the Office of Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws. Áine was the lead author of the IBAHRI’s report on the destruction of cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as supporting author of reports into Gender Apartheid in Afghanistan and Iran, and Conflict-Related Sexual Violence in the DRC. She also worked with civil society organisations to organise Parliamentary sessions on human rights issues, including universal jurisdiction and children’s rights in armed conflict. Earlier in her career Áine worked in the Magistrates’ Secretariat at the Ministry of Justice. She is an unregistered barrister, called to the Bar of England and Wales in November 2023.

Áine holds a First Class Master’s degree in Globalisation and the Law, specialising in human rights, from Maastricht University. During and after the degree, she was a research assistant on a project on how armed conflict affects children in unrecognised states. She earned her LLB in English and European Law from Queen Mary University of London in 2020. As part of that degree she spent a year in Bologna, Italy, studying Gender and the Law and Law and Psychology.

Áine currently volunteers at the South Westminster Legal Advice Centre, as an Independent Custody Visitor in the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and as an advocate for the Free Representation Unit, taking on social security cases. She has also volunteered with the Global Bioethics Initiative, Education Partnerships Africa and the Environmental Rights Centre for Scotland.

She is qualified to teach English as a second language and speaks English and conversational Lithuanian.

 

 

View Áine Macdonald's profile