Graduated in Law (LLB Hons) LLM, specialising in International Law and Islamic Law. He completed his PhD in International Conflict Analysis from the University of Kent.He is the Research Director at the advocacy group CAGE, and since 2003 has specialised in investigating the impact of counterterrorism practices worldwide. He has published a wide range of NGO reports, academic journals and articles. In 2009, he authored the book Rules of the Game: Detention, Deportation, Disappearance (Hurst, Columbia UP) a chapter in the 2017 book What is Islamophobia? (Pluto Press, Chicago UP) and in 2018 A Virtue of Disobedience (Unbound and ByLine Books). In 2020 the book I Refuse to Condemn was published by Manchester University Press (Dr Asim Qureshi Editor). Since 2010, he has been advising legal teams involved in defending terrorism trials in the US and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.