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Lawfare (Hardcover)
Geoffrey Robertson
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R254
Discovery Miles 2 540
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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How Russians, the Rich and the Government Try to Prevent Free
Speech and How to Stop Them. ‘ESSENTIAL’ Amal Clooney
‘AUTHORITATIVE’ Sir Geoffrey Bindman KC ‘IMPORTANT
’Baroness Helena Kennedy KC ‘COULD HARDLY BE MORE TIMELY’
Alan Rusbridger The British tradition of “free speech” is a
myth. From the middle ages to the present, the law of defamation
has worked to cover up misbehaviour by the rich and powerful, whose
legal mercenaries intimidate investigative journalists. Now a new
terror has been added through misguided judicial development of the
laws of privacy, breach of confidence and data protection, to
suppress the reporting of truths of public importance to tell.
Drawing upon the author’s unparalleled experience of defending
journalists and editors in English and Commonwealth courtrooms over
the past half-century, the book describes the hidden world of
lawfare, in which authors struggle against unfair rules that put
them always on the defensive and against a costs burden that runs
to millions. Law schools do not teach freedom of speech and judges
in the Supreme Court do not understand it. This book identifies and
advocates the reforms that will be necessary before Britain can
truly boast that it is a land of free speech, rather than a place
where free speech can come very expensive.
When it was first published in 1999, Crimes Against Humanity called
for a radical shift from diplomacy to justice in international
affairs. In vivid, non-legalese prose, leading human rights lawyer
Geoffrey Robertson made a riveting case for holding political and
military leaders accountable in international courts for genocide,
torture, and mass murder. Since then, fearsome figures such as
Charles Taylor, Laurent Gbagbo, and Ratko Mladic have been tried in
international criminal court, and a global movement has rallied
around the human rights framework of justice. Any such legal
framework requires constant evolution in order to stay relevant,
and this newly revised and expanded volume brings the conversation
up to date. In substantial new chapters, Robertson covers the
protection of war correspondents, the problem of piracy, crimes
against humanity in Syria, nuclear armament in Iran, and other
challenges we are grappling with today. He criticizes the Obama
administration's policies around "targeted killing" and the trials
of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other "high value" detainees. By
rendering a complex debate accessible, Robertson once again
provides an essential guide for anyone looking to understand human
rights and how to work toward a more complete blueprint for
justice.
From the Nuremberg trials to the arrest of General Pinochet to the
prosecution of barbarians of the Balkans, we have crafted a global
human rights law to punish crimes against humanity. And yet today
it is rarely applied: the International Criminal Court has
faltered, populist governments refuse to cooperate, the UN Security
Council is pole-axed and liberal democracy is on the defensive.
When faced with the torture of Sergei Magnitsky, the murder of
Jamal Khashoggi and the repression of the Uighurs, what recourse do
we have? Distinguished human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson
argues that our most powerful weapon is Magnitsky laws, by which
not only perpetrators but their accomplices - lickspittle judges,
doctors who assist in torture, corporations that profit from slave
labour - are named, shamed and blamed. Though the UK and the EU
have passed nascent Magnitsky laws, they are not deploying them
effectively. It is only by developing a full-blooded system of
coordinated sanctions - banning human rights violators from
entering democratic countries to funnel their ill-gotten gains
through Western banks and take advantage of our schools and
hospitals - that we can fight back against cruelty and corruption.
Bad People sets out a Plan B for human rights, offering a new
blueprint for global justice in a post-pandemic world.
Geoffrey Robertson led students in the '60s to demand an end to
racism and censorship. He went on to become a top human rights
advocate, saving the lives of many death-row inmates, freeing
dissidents and taking on tyrants in a career marked by courage,
determination and a fierce independence. In this witty, honest and
sometimes irreverent memoir, he recalls battles on behalf of George
Harrison and Julian Assange, Salman Rushdie and Vaclav Havel, Mike
Tyson and the Sex Pistols, and battles against General Pinochet,
Lee Kuan Yew and Mrs Thatcher (the true story of Spycatcher is told
for the first time). Interspersed with these forensic fireworks is
the story of a pimply schoolboy from a state comprehensive,
inspired by a banned book to become a barrister at the Old Bailey
and who went on to found the UK's leading human rights practice
(Doughty Street Chambers) and to defend troublemakers throughout
the world. Rather His Own Man captures the drama of the trial, the
thrill of victory and the feeling of `courtus interruptus' when a
big case settles. Its cast of characters includes Princess Diana,
Pee-Wee Herman, Dame Edna, the Queen and Rupert - the bear and the
media mogul. It's a read that is both exhilarating and erudite -
and very funny.
The biggest question in the world of art and culture concerns the
return of property taken without consent. Throughout history,
conquerors or colonial masters have taken artefacts from subjugated
peoples, who now want them returned from museums and private
collections in Europe and the USA. The controversy rages on over
the Elgin Marbles, and has been given immediacy by figures such as
France's President Macron, who says he will order French museums to
return hundreds of artworks acquired by force or fraud in Africa,
and by British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has pledged
that a Labour government would return the Elgin Marbles to Greece.
Elsewhere, there is a debate in Belgium about whether the Africa
Museum, newly opened with 120,000 items acquired mainly by armed
forces in the Congo, should close. Although there is an
international convention dated 1970 that deals with the restoration
of artefacts stolen since that time, there is no agreement on the
rules of law or ethics which should govern the fate of objects
forcefully or lawlessly acquired in previous centuries. Who Owns
History? delves into the crucial debate over the Elgin Marbles, but
also offers a system for the return of cultural property based on
human rights law principles that are being developed by the courts.
It is not a legal text, but rather an examination of how the past
can be experienced by everyone, as well as by the people of the
country of origin.
On 24th April 2015 people around the world commemorated the
centenary of the death of over one million Armenians. In their
eyes, and in those of many around the world, they will be
remembering a genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire. Turkey
has always explained the dead as simply victims of a vicious civil
war, and continues to this day to refuse to acknowledge the events
as constituting genocide.This argument has become, in turn, an
international issue. Twenty national parliaments in democratic
countries have voted to recognise the genocide, but Britain and the
USA continue to equivocate for fear, it would seem, of alienating
their NATO ally.In this seminal book, Geoffrey Robertson QC, a
former UN appeals judge, sets out to prove beyond all reasonable
doubt that the massacres and deportations were a crime against
humanity which amounted to genocide.
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The Putney Debates (Paperback)
Philip Baker; The Levellers; Introduction by Geoffrey Robertson
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R309
R279
Discovery Miles 2 790
Save R30 (10%)
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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In a series of debates with Oliver Cromwell in Civil War England of
1647, the Levellers argued for democracy for the first time in
British history. Evolving from Oliver Cromwell's New Model army in
Parliament's struggle against King Charles I, the Levellers pushed
for the removal of corruption in parliament, universal voting
rights and religious toleration. This came to a head with the
famous debates between the Levellers and Cromwell at St Mary's
church in Putney, London. Renowned human-rights lawyer and author
Geoffrey Robertson argues for the relevance of the Levellers' stand
today, showing how they were the first Western radical democrats.
As the world wonders what can be done with the leaders of Iran,
this report by a leading UN jurist establishes that many of them -
including the Supreme Leader - committed an international crime
when they approved and carried out a secret massacre of thousands
of political prisoners. This atrocity in 1988, hidden at the time
from UN investigators, is now revealed in its full scope and
horror, inviting the question of whether the very men capable of
his level of lawlessness and barbarity against their own people can
be trusted with nuclear power. Geoffrey Robertson QC meticulously
unravels the fanatic theocratic thinking that led to the mass
murder and identifies the judges, diplomats and politicians (most
of them still in positions of power in Iran) who carried out and
covered up this "final solution" to the problem of political
dissent. He tells how "thousands of prisoners were blindfolded and
paraded before the death committee which directed them to a conga
line leading straight to the gallows. They were hung from cranes,
four at a time, or in groups of six from ropes hanging from the
stage of the prison assembly hall. Their bodies were doused with
disinfectant, packed in refrigerated trucks and buried by night in
mass graves the locations of which were (and still are) withheld
from their families." Mr Robertson concludes that these killings
were of greater infamy than the Japanese death marches at the end
of World War II or the slaughter at Srebrenica, and he urges the UN
to set up a Special Court to ensure that their perpetrators are
similarly punished.
The legend of the six rural labourers who were transported to
Australia in 1834 for swearing an oath of solidarity is celebrated
as the foundation of the modern trade union movement. The labourers
suffered no violence 'save the extreme and horrible violence of the
law itself'. The true lesson from the story demonstrates that
societies need guarantees to prevent 'injustice within the law'.
Charles I waged civil wars that cost one in ten Englishmen their
lives. But in 1649 parliament was hard put to find a lawyer with
the skill and daring to prosecute a King who was above the law: in
the end the man they briefed was the radical barrister, John Cooke.
Cooke was a plebeian, son of a poor farmer, but he had the courage
to bring the King's trial to its dramatic conclusion: the English
republic. Cromwell appointed him as a reforming Chief Justice in
Ireland, but in 1660 he was dragged back to the Old Bailey, tried
and brutally executed. John Cooke was the bravest of barristers,
who risked his own life to make tyranny a crime. He originated the
right to silence, the 'cab rank' rule of advocacy and the duty to
act free-of-charge for the poor. He conducted the first trial of a
Head of State for waging war on his own people - a forerunner of
the prosecutions of Pinochet, Milosevic and Saddam Hussein, and a
lasting inspiration to the modern world.
This Persian version of the report by a leading UN jurist
establishes that many of the leaders of the Islamic Republic of
Iran - including the Supreme Leader - committed an international
crime when they approved and carried out a secret massacre of
thousands of political prisoners. This atrocity in 1988, hidden at
the time from UN investigators, is now revealed in its full scope
and horror, inviting the question of whether the very men capable
of his level of lawlessness and barbarity against their own people
can be trusted with nuclear power. Geoffrey Robertson QC
meticulously unravels the fanatic theocratic thinking that led to
the mass murder and identifies the judges, diplomats and
politicians (most of them still in positions of power in Iran) who
carried out and covered up this "final solution" to the problem of
political dissent. He tells how "thousands of prisoners were
blindfolded and paraded before the death committee which directed
them to a conga line leading straight to the gallows. They were
hung from cranes, four at a time, or in groups of six from ropes
hanging from the stage of the prison assembly hall. Their bodies
were doused with disinfectant, packed in refrigerated trucks and
buried by night in mass graves the locations of which were (and
still are) withheld from their families." Mr Robertson concludes
that these killings were of greater infamy than the Japanese death
marches at the end of World War II or the slaughter at Srebrenica,
and he urges the UN to set up a Special Court to ensure that their
perpetrators are similarly punished.
In The Case of the Pope Geoffrey Robertson QC delivers a
devastating indictment of the way the Vatican has run a secret
legal system that shields paedophile priests from criminal trial
around the world. Is the Pope morally or legally responsible for
the negligence that has allowed so many terrible crimes to go
unpunished? Should he and his seat of power, the Holy See, continue
to enjoy an immunity that places them above the law? Geoffrey
Robertson QC, a distinguished human rights lawyer and judge,
evinces a deep respect for the good works of Catholics and their
church. But, he argues, unless Pope Benedict XVI can divest himself
of the beguilements of statehood and devotion to obsolescent canon
law, the Vatican will remain a serious enemy to the advance of
human rights. 'Robertson is an adept QC and this is a devastating
case' Daily Telegraph 'Combines moral passion with steely forensic
precision ... It is one of the most formidable demolition jobs one
could imagine on a man who has done more to discredit the cause of
religion than Rasputin and Pat Robertson put together' Terry
Eagleton, Guardian 'Forceful, wide-ranging' The Tablet 'Robertson
has not become a successful lawyer by muddling his arguments and
distorting his facts ... He writes clearly, at times passionately,
as counsel for the prosecution' John Lloyd, Financial Times
Geoffrey Robertson QC is founder and head of Doughty Street
Chambers, the largest human rights practice in the UK. In 2008, he
was appointed as a distinguished jurist member of the UN Justice
Council. His books include Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle
for Global Justice, a memoir, The Justice Game and The Tyrannicide
Brief, an award winning study of the trial of Charles I.
Geoff Robertson was born in Australia, bu came to London in 1970. He made his name as the fearless defender of Oz magazine at the celebrated trial and went on to engage in some of the most newsworthy cases in recent history. He has defended John Stonehouse, Cynthia Payne, Salman Rushdie, Kate Adie, Arthur Scargill, Daniel Sullivan, Gay News, 'The Romans of Britain', 'Niggaz with Attitude', and a pair of foetal earrings. The book includes accounts of recent cases including the defence of a West London gym owner against the Prince of Wales, the Matrix Churchill affair, and the defence of the Guardian in the cash-for-questions affair. Hugely readable, funny, scandalous, revelator, this will become one of the great books about the law.
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