Today’s Chambers Chatter stays at St Philips Chambers, where barrister Wendy Miller operates and from which she represented both Cummins and Cepac against Lee Thompson. Wendy is not the feature today. She can keep the employment files warm and maybe put the kettle on. We are going abroad.
This one belongs to Peter Haynes KC, St Philips’ international-crime specialist, former President of the International Criminal Court Bar Association, current lead defence counsel for former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, and the sort of barrister whose diary can apparently move from Joseph Kony to The Hague without anybody in clerking spilling the coffee.
St Philips calls the practice area International Crime.
Fair enough.
TCAP calls it one hell of a fucking client list.
Peter Haynes KC Checks In At The Hague
Peter Haynes KC was called to the Bar in 1983 and took silk in 2008. St Philips describes him as one of the foremost practitioners in international criminal and humanitarian law, and the professional record supports the billing.
For much of the last quarter-century, Haynes has worked in that strange legal borderland where governments, militias, dead civilians, atrocities and political history are fed through courtrooms with carpet tiles. Srebrenica is on the CV. Jean-Pierre Bemba is on the CV. The Hariri assassination is on the CV. War crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and international terrorism all appear somewhere along the route.
Most lawyers accumulate cases. Haynes appears to accumulate geopolitical eras.
There is something almost obscene about the conversion process. Outside the courtroom, people remember villages, bodies, fear, uniforms, missing relatives and presidents giving speeches into microphones. Inside, meanwhile, all of it becomes tabs: Bundle A, Bundle B, Witness 147, Prosecution Exhibit 319, objection, adjournment, lunch.
International criminal law is civilisation’s attempt to process hell through Microsoft Word.
Haynes has spent decades inside the machine.
Joseph Kony Enters Through The Staff Door
In June 2024, the International Criminal Court appointed Haynes to represent Joseph Kony’s interests during proceedings to determine whether charges against him could be confirmed in his absence.
Joseph Kony needs little introduction. He is the long-missing leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, and the ICC case concerns alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in northern Uganda. His name has spent years travelling through news reports attached to murder, abduction, forced recruitment and terror.
Kony remains at large.
Haynes did not represent him at a trial in absentia, because there was no such trial. Instead, he represented Kony’s interests during the Court’s first-ever confirmation-of-charges hearing held while the accused remained absent.
That distinction matters legally.
It is also an extraordinary fucking day at work.
Most St Philips barristers probably open Outlook and find directions hearings, conferences, skeleton deadlines and a polite message from a solicitor beginning “just chasing”. Haynes gets Joseph Kony.
Naturally, the chambers announced the appointment on its website because, professionally, this is prestigious work. International profile. Historic proceedings. Serious advocacy. All perfectly legitimate.
Even so, there is something wonderfully surreal about scrolling past chambers seminars and pupillage news before suddenly finding one of Africa’s most notorious alleged war criminals sitting between the hyperlinks.
St Philips has range.
The Hague Does Not Do Small Talk
The hearing finally took place in September 2025. Haynes appeared for the defence while the ICC considered whether prosecutors had produced sufficient evidence for the charges to proceed.
Then, on 6 November 2025, the Court confirmed all 39 charges against Kony.
Thirty-nine.
Not a typo. Not a parking ticket with ambitions.
Thirty-nine alleged counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Because Kony has not been arrested, there is no trial unless and until he appears before the Court. Nevertheless, the confirmation process itself was historic, and Haynes was there representing his interests.
None of that makes Peter Haynes responsible for anything Joseph Kony is accused of. A defence lawyer does not absorb his client’s allegations through osmosis, and nobody comes out of conference accidentally indicted because they sat too close to the bundle.
In fact, the opposite principle matters more. Justice means very little if competent representation is available only to people everybody likes. The entire fucking point becomes visible when the defendant is hated, notorious or accused of acts that make polite society recoil.
Haynes did the job the system required someone to do.
St Philips, however, also chose to market that job.
That is where Chambers Chatter pulls up a chair.
St Philips Puts Kony In The Window
By the end of 2025, St Philips included Haynes’ Kony work in its own review of a landmark year.
Of course it did.
If you have a barrister doing historic ICC proceedings, you put it on the website. That is what chambers websites are for.
However, marketing has a peculiar alchemy when the commodity being displayed is international criminal defence. Somewhere, a communications person has to take Joseph Kony, armed conflict, alleged atrocities and decades of violence and turn all of it into a tasteful paragraph between an awards announcement and a breakfast seminar.
No blood. No screaming. Just clean typography and Read More.
That is the modern legal profession.
Human catastrophe goes in. Professional prestige comes out.
Nobody even stains the carpet.
Then Rodrigo Duterte Walks In
By May 2026, St Philips had another international appointment to announce. Peter Haynes KC had become lead defence counsel for Rodrigo Duterte, former President of the Philippines.
Now we are ordering off the expensive side of the menu.
Duterte faces three counts of crimes against humanity before the International Criminal Court arising from alleged killings connected with the so-called war on drugs. In April 2026, the ICC confirmed all three counts and committed him to trial.
The trial is scheduled to begin on 30 November 2026. Duterte denies criminal responsibility and, like anyone facing criminal allegations, is entitled to a defence.
Haynes leads it.
Imagine the diary entry: Monday, conference; Tuesday, drafting; Wednesday, Rodrigo Duterte; Thursday, call the clerks.
Meanwhile, there are barristers whose most difficult professional problem this week is whether the tribunal bundle has duplicated pages 772 to 814.
Peter Haynes has the former President of the Philippines facing crimes-against-humanity charges at The Hague.
Same profession.
Different minibar.
St Philips Goes Shopping
By now, the Chambers Chatter title stops being metaphor and starts looking like procurement.
Srebrenica.
Bemba.
Hariri.
Kony.
Duterte.
One by one, the names appear on the St Philips international-law shelf like somebody has been collecting passport stamps from the darkest corners of modern history.
Again, Haynes has acted in different capacities across these matters: defendant work, victim work, appeals and international tribunal proceedings. It would therefore be dishonest to squash everything into “man defends monsters”.
That is not the story.
The story is stranger.
One Birmingham chambers can have Wendy Miller arguing employment cases at one end of the website while Peter Haynes KC appears to be running a satellite office from the departure lounge at Schiphol.
One corridor deals with workplace disputes. A few digital doors along, humanity is being prosecuted.
It is like discovering the dentist upstairs also has a side room for regime change.
Jean-Pierre Bemba And The Useful Problem With Justice
Haynes’ work for Jean-Pierre Bemba matters because it stops this article becoming stupid.
Bemba had been convicted at the ICC of war crimes and crimes against humanity arising from crimes committed in the Central African Republic. Then, in 2018, the Appeals Chamber overturned that conviction in the main case.
Haynes was part of the defence team.
That is not something to sneer at. On the contrary, it is exactly why defence counsel matters.
International criminal justice becomes propaganda if the prosecution is automatically right because the allegations are horrific. Courts exist to test evidence, law, responsibility and fairness. Therefore, if an appellate court overturns a conviction, the system has not failed because the defendant had good lawyers.
That is the system working.
For that reason, the Haynes CV becomes more interesting rather than less. He is not some cartoon villain’s concierge.
He is good at this.
Very good, apparently.
And being very good at international criminal defence means your professional scrapbook starts looking like something airport security might want explained.
Humanity’s Worst Days, Now With Contact Details
St Philips advertises international crime as a practice area.
Perfectly reasonable.
Still, read the page too quickly and the effect is fucking extraordinary.
International Crime.
Click.
War crimes.
Click.
Srebrenica.
Click.
Kony.
Click.
Duterte.
Contact our clerks.
There is the entire architecture of modern justice condensed into five clicks and an email address.
Humanity has spent centuries developing increasingly elaborate ways to kill, persecute, terrorise and govern badly. The legal profession, meanwhile, has responded with an enquiries form.
Somewhere, Max Weber is laughing himself sick.
This Is Not Guilt By Brief
Before somebody at St Philips develops repetitive strain injury from drafting an email, let us deal with the obvious point properly.
Peter Haynes KC is not accused here of endorsing Rodrigo Duterte, nor is he accused of endorsing Joseph Kony. Representing an accused person does not make counsel morally responsible for whatever the client is alleged to have done.
Criminal defence would be meaningless if advocates were expected to conduct a moral-purity test before accepting instructions.
This is basic.
The humour comes from somewhere else entirely.
St Philips itself takes these cases and converts them into professional prestige. Fine. Once it does that, TCAP gets to read the trophy labels.
You cannot put The Hague in the shop window and complain when somebody stops outside.
Wendy Miller’s Quiet End Of The Shop
And yes, barrister Wendy Miller is still here.
Miller operates from St Philips Chambers and represented Cummins against Lee Thompson before later appearing for Cepac against him in a separate Employment Tribunal dispute.
She has nothing to do with Haynes’ ICC work.
Nothing.
Wendy did not brief Haynes, prosecute Joseph Kony, defend Rodrigo Duterte, sign an arrest warrant, invade Uganda or personally book anyone into a Dutch hotel.
Her role is considerably more useful to TCAP.
She gave us the address.
That is why Chambers Chatter exists. When one barrister repeatedly appears against you in litigation, eventually you look at the professional building around them. You check the neighbours, read the biographies, open the old press stories and see what the chambers itself is proud enough to frame.
Richard Atkins KC gave St Philips polished shoes and proper haircuts.
Peter Haynes KC gives it Joseph Kony and Rodrigo Duterte.
Wendy works in a fucking interesting building.
From Cummins To The International Criminal Court
The scale difference is delicious.
TCAP first encountered Wendy Miller through Cummins: factory worker, disability discrimination, Employment Tribunal. Then came Cepac, a recruitment dispute and another Employment Tribunal.
Very terrestrial stuff.
Human Resources with wigs nearby.
Spend a few minutes wandering around the St Philips website, however, and suddenly you are in Uganda, the Philippines, Srebrenica and The Hague wondering who packed the plug adapter.
That is not evidence of anything sinister.
It is evidence that barristers’ chambers are bizarre institutions.
A set is not really a company in the normal sense. Instead, it is more like an expensive legal hotel where everybody shares reception but checks into completely different nightmares.
Room 12: discrimination.
Room 19: commercial fraud.
Room 27: planning.
Penthouse: crimes against humanity.
Breakfast until ten.
A Very Particular Souvenir Shop
The Hague itself is perfect for this sort of legal surrealism.
Clean streets. Bicycles. Glass buildings. Conference badges. Diplomats walking briskly towards somewhere important. The North Sea nearby, grey and indifferent.
Inside the courts, however, the menu changes: mass killing, child soldiers, political violence, command responsibility, torture and extermination.
Then everybody breaks for coffee.
There is something terrifyingly civilised about it.
Perhaps that is the point. We built institutions because history without institutions becomes revenge.
Nevertheless, the contrast never stops being strange.
Peter Haynes KC has spent much of his career moving through that contrast, taking allegations that belong in nightmares and forcing them through rules of evidence, jurisdiction and procedure.
That is serious work. St Philips is entitled to be proud of the advocacy.
TCAP is equally entitled to notice that the chambers souvenir shelf includes Kony and Duterte.
Everyone gets a postcard.
When Atrocity Becomes A Practice Area
Professional biographies sanitise everything.
No barrister profile says Peter spent Thursday reading descriptions of civilians being murdered and Friday arguing jurisdiction before flying home.
Instead, it says:
International Criminal Law.
Elegant.
Three words and humanity’s worst impulses disappear behind a heading.
This is not unique to St Philips. Every profession does it. Soldiers have operations, banks have restructuring, governments have collateral damage and lawyers have practice areas.
Language puts a clean napkin over the thing so everyone can finish dinner.
Chambers Chatter simply lifts the napkin.
Not because Haynes has done something wrong, but because the reality is considerably more interesting than the brochure.
The Hague Receipt
So what has St Philips brought home?
There is a former President of the ICC Bar Association, Srebrenica litigation, the Bemba appellate acquittal, victims of the Hariri assassination, Joseph Kony’s historic confirmation proceedings and now Rodrigo Duterte, facing trial on three counts of crimes against humanity.
That is a serious career.
It is also an extraordinary one.
More importantly for TCAP, it is one of the strangest things we have found while wandering around the professional home of barrister Wendy Miller looking for something to read.
St Philips went shopping at The Hague.
It did not come home with fridge magnets.
Peter Haynes KC brought back a client list that reads like international news after midnight, while Wendy keeps the employment corridor warm.
TCAP checks the receipt.
Apparently, everyone has a specialism.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project
Sources
- Peter Haynes KC – St Philips Chambers
- Peter Haynes KC Appointed Lead Defence Counsel For Former President Of The Philippines – St Philips Chambers
- Peter Haynes KC To Represent Joseph Kony At The International Criminal Court – St Philips Chambers
- Peter Haynes KC Appears Before The ICC At Historic Joseph Kony Confirmation Of Charges Hearing – St Philips Chambers
- Peter Haynes KC Visits President Of Uganda In His Role As Joseph Kony’s Lead Counsel – St Philips Chambers
- Rodrigo Duterte – International Criminal Court
- Uganda : Joseph Kony Case – International Criminal Court
- Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo – International Criminal Court
- Wendy Miller – St Philips Chambers