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Campaigning Wiki

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Summary

UK-specific know-your-rights guides and a legal-observer training pack produced by Green & Black Cross, the protest legal-support network historically tied to the UK climate movement; jurisdiction-tagged England and Wales (with Scotland/NI notes).

Body

Green & Black Cross (GBC) is the UK protest legal-support network associated with the climate-movement response to Extinction Rebellion and the broader UK protest-law tradition [source: gbc-know-your-rights]. Its KYR guides are jurisdiction-tagged for England and Wales (with separate Scotland and Northern Ireland notes), and cover the legal-rights questions a protester is most likely to face: stop-and-search powers, conditions on a Section 14 public-order direction, the meaning of “going equipped”, the rules around photography and filming of police, and the rights of an arrestee at the station (right to free legal advice, right to have someone informed of detention) [source: gbc-know-your-rights].

The legal-observer pack trains volunteer observers — typically law students or retired lawyers — to attend actions, observe police-public contact, record events contemporaneously, and provide witness statements after the fact. GBC’s LO guidance is explicit that LOs are observers, not legal advisers; they may verbally inform arrestees of basic rights at the moment of arrest but should not give legal advice and should not physically intervene [source: gbc-know-your-rights]. The pack includes an observation form template (pre-printed, single-page, designed to be filled in the moment) and post-action follow-up procedures.

GBC also publishes a “first hour” guide — what arrestees should expect and what they should not say in the first hour at a police station, before they have access to a solicitor — and a summary of the Public Order Act 2023 changes affecting protest [source: gbc-know-your-rights]. The materials are free; reuse terms are not explicit so treat as link-only and paraphrase. Not legal advice; UK jurisdiction only.

Use it for

Designing a protest legal-support plan in England/Wales; training LOs; pre-action briefing on Section 14 / stop-and-search / Public Order Act 2023 risk.

Open Questions

  • Confirm current edition date — UK protest law moved substantially in 2022–2023 with the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and the Public Order Act 2023.

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