Toby Hamnett is a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army Legal Services and a practising solicitor with extensive experience in the application of international legal frameworks in armed conflict. He has served for 24 years focusing on the major conflict zones in which the UK has committed forces including Northern Ireland, Iraq, Kosovo and Afghanistan. His experience has related to the practical legal application of the use of force, detention and surveillance, particularly the UK statutory regulatory regimes including the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000.

His current interests focus on the effective training of the law of armed conflict to encourage lawful and appropriate behaviours in the military through use of ethics frameworks including the British Army’s Values and Standards. With prosecutorial experience at the Court Martial dealing with military and civil offences he is able to assess the impact of war crimes and other breaches of the Law of Armed Conflict across the range from the individual to the operational and strategic levels.

He has a LLM in International Law from the University of Nottingham which focused on the development of peace keeping forces in the Balkan conflicts in the 1990s. His MA in Military Studies from King’s College London considered the legal and ethical frameworks which apply to the threshold of armed conflict. 

Research

• Ethical and legal frameworks on the threshold of armed conflict
• Encouraging appropriate behaviours in conflict – applying the law through an ethical lens