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 Václav 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 speeches and essays collected in this book provoke, disturb and entertain. Here you will find new heroes, insights into Australian education, encounters with Vaclev Havel, Rupert Murdoch, John Mortimer and Julian Assange, reflections on worldwide problems such as torture, terrorism and the Catholic church, and much else besides.
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.
In this witty, engrossing and sometimes poignant memoir, a sequel to his best-selling The Justice Game, Australia’s inimitable Geoffrey Robertson charts his progress from pimply state schoolboy to top Old Bailey barrister and thence onwards and upwards to a leading role in the struggle for human rights throughout the world. He wryly observes the absurdities of growing up as one of ‘Ming’s kids’; the passion of student protest in the sixties and his early crusades for ‘Down Under-dogs’, before leaving on a Rhodes Scholarship to combat the British establishment, with the help of John Mortimer of ‘Rumpole’ fame. There are dramatic accounts of fighting for lives on death rows, freeing dissidents and taking on tyrants, armed only with a unique mind and a passion for justice – on display whenever he boomeranged back to Australia to conduct Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypotheticals. His is an amazing life story of David and Goliath battles – riveting, laugh-out-loud tales filled with romance and danger, featuring a cast of characters ranging from General Pinochet to Pee-Wee Herman; from Malcolm Turnbull to Mike Tyson; from Nigella Lawson to Kathy Lette and Julian Assange. Throughout his exploits – recounted here with irreverent humour and dashes of true wisdom – Geoffrey Robertson has remained determinedly independent and his own man. He has also, in respect of human rights, changed the way we think.
Geoffrey Robertson's Crimes Against Humanity is a superb and highly influential account of the history of the human rights movement up to the present day. From the French Revolution and the Nuremberg trials to 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, Robertson traces the developing concept of human rights and shows how far we still have to go. His inspiring narrative is both a masterly history and a clarion call to the global justice movement.
Twenty years ago Geoffrey Robertson inspired the global justice movement with his ground-breaking book, Crimes Against Humanity. Since then, the movement has stalled, as nationalism takes hold and populist governments retreat from international courts and refuse to comply with their rulings. But there is an alternative. The Plan B for human rights looks back to national laws to name, blame and shame abusers. It strips them of their right to enter democratic nations, and of ill-gotten funds they seek to deposit in global banks; and it bars them and their families from schools and hospitals in these countries. This book explains the background and potential of these laws, which have been called Magnitsky Laws, after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in a Russian jail after exposing state corruption. Early versions of them have been introduced in the US, Canada and Britain, and they are now being considered in Australia. Geoffrey Robertson argues in this book that the Magnitsky movement offers a potent solution to crimes being committed against humanity, whether in America, Russia, China or Belarus. These abuses are a concern for all human beings, and good people are no longer prepared to tolerate them, in their own country or elsewhere in the world. The Magnitsky laws can show the way forward for the global justice movement in the twenty-first century.
THE CASE OF THE POPE 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.
THE CASE OF THE POPE 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.
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, Miloševic and Saddam Hussein, and a lasting inspiration to the modern world.
The fifth edition of Media Law covers legal developments affecting journalists and broadcasters. There is exhaustive coverage of all the major areas of media law, detailing the up-to-date position on defamation, obscenity, official secrecy, copyright and confidentiality, contempt of court and protection of privacy. Also covered is the regulation of films, video, theatre and advertising, plus the rights of access to business and government information.
A third collection of transcripts, comprising five from the ABC television series and the unscreened TMedia Hypothetical', made for commercial television. Robertson QC is an international human rights lawyer, Rhodes scholar, and director of the Institute for Contemporary Arts. The texts of three of Robertson's lectures are included as an appendix.
In Mullahs Without Mercy Geoffrey Robertson QC demonstrates, with chilling examples, why Iran cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons. This timely and authoritative book makes clear how international law must be deployed to stop Iran from developing a nuclear strike capability. A dramatic account of how Iran's leaders have committed, without compunction, a series of crimes against humanity and a sinister campaign of targeted assassinations, Mullahs Without Mercy makes clear that the perpetrators remain in positions of power and are conspiring to commit a greater crime - the possession and use of nuclear weapons. Using his unique access to the Boroumand Foundation files, Geoffrey Robertson makes the case that the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran will be catastrophic for peace and justice for everyone. No scenario can avoid the serious risk that by design or even miscalculation, the bomb will be used and will trigger a regional, and possibly global, war.
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.
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.
There have been times when Australian court judgments have held enormous weight in courts throughout the world, certainly throughout the Commonwealth. Owen Dixon's High Court in the 1950s and Anthony Mason's High Court in the 1980s are examples. If there were an Olympic record for teams of judges - and why not since they have Olympic medals for tae kwon do and beach volleyball - the Mason court would have won gold year after year. The quality of its jurisprudence was the best in the world" - Geoffrey Robertson QC, Sydney Morning Herald, 30th August 2007.This book comprises a selection of articles and speeches by Sir Anthony Mason written and delivered when he was a Justice and later Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia and after his retirement from that Court in 1995. It demonstrates his long standing interest in the judicial process and his desire to communicate to the legal world and the public a more enlightened understanding of the proper scope of judicial law-making and the responsibility of judges for adapting the law to the changing conditions in society. It also displays his acknowledged mastery of public and private law and his belief in the growing significance of international and comparative law in the development of Australian law. The book contains some important speeches and articles on constitutional and administrative law, international law, human rights, equity and contract, the High Court, judicial administration, advocacy, a significant media interview, a State of the Judicature report delivered as the Chief Justice of Australia and his swearing in speeches when appointed as a Justice and later Chief Justice of the High Court. Some of the selected speeches display Sir Anthony's characteristic wit. The book deals with highly topical subjects such as whether Australia should adopt a bill of rights, the health of Australia's democratic institutions, the establishment of an Australian republic, globalization and the decline of parliamentary and national sovereignty. The articles and speeches were chosen and edited by Professor Geoffrey Lindell in consultation with Sir Anthony.
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 Václav 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 CASE OF THE POPE 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.
The most controversial question that is still being asked about the First World War - was there an Armenian genocide? - will come to a head on 24 April 2015, when Armenians worldwide will commemorate its centenary and Turkey will deny that it took place, claiming that the deaths of over half of the Armenian race were justified. This has become a vital international issue. Twenty national parliaments in democratic countries have voted to recognise the genocide, but Britain and the USA continue to equivocate for fear of alienating their NATO ally. Geoffrey Robertson QC condemns this hypocrisy, and in An Inconvenient Genocide he proves beyond reasonable doubt that the horrific events in the Ottoman Empire in 1915 constitute the crime against humanity that is today known as genocide. He explains how democracies can deal with genocide denial without infringing free speech, and makes a major contribution to understanding and preventing this worst of all crimes. His renowned powers of advocacy are on full display as he condemns all those - from Sri Lanka to the Sudan, from Old Anatolia to modern Syria and Iraq - who try to justify the mass murder of children and civilians in the name of military necessity or religious fervour.
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.
The book is a comprehensive treatment of the application of geotechnical engineering to site selection, site exploration, design, operation and closure of mine waste storage facilities.The level and content are suitable as a technical source and reference for practising engineers engaged both in the design and operational management of mine waste s
London's East End has been associated with some of the worst elements of human depravity, where foul deeds and murder were commonplace; and the area's notoriety was added to by the horrific murders committed by Jack, the Ripper. For centuries the East End's notoriety for foul deeds has remained unsurpassed in the annals of crime in this country.
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 claimed to be above the law. In the end, they chose the radical lawyer John Cooke, whose Puritan conscience, political vision, and love of civil liberties gave him the courage to bring the king to trial. As a result, Charles I was beheaded, but eleven years later Cooke himself was arrested, tried, and executed at the hands of Charles II. Geoffrey Robertson, a renowned human rights lawyer, provides a vivid new reading of the tumultuous Civil War years, exposing long-hidden truths: that the king was guilty, that his execution was necessary to establish the sovereignty of Parliament, that the regicide trials were rigged and their victims should be seen as national heroes. Cooke’s trial of Charles I, the first trial of a head of state for waging war on his own people, became a forerunner of the trials of Augusto Pinochet, Slobodan Milosevic, and Saddam Hussein. The Tyrannicide Brief is a superb work of history that casts a revelatory light on some of the most important issues of our time.
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.
In this new edition of Uneasy Partnership, Geoffrey Hale examines the interdependent relationship between Canadian governments and businesses, considering governments’ multiple roles in the economy and their implications for the business environment. Hale provides an overview of the historical dimensions of Canada’s political economy and relations between government and business. Readers are invited to consider topics such as corporate power, the implications of Canada's economic structure, regional economic differences, the cross-cutting effects of globalization, and the role of interest groups in political and policy processes. In a thoughtful and well-researched style, Hale lays out how the partnership between business and government in Canada is an uneasy one—and one whose capacity to adapt to ongoing change is essential in an uncertain world.
There are other books on unsaturated soil mechanics, but this book is different. Unsaturated soil mechanics is only one aspect of a continuous range of soil mechanics studies that extends from the rheology of high water content soil slurries to the mechanics of soft soils, to stiff saturated soils, to unsaturated soils, and, at the far end of the r
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