Speaker Bios

Geoffrey Robertson

Geoffrey Robertson QC is a United Nations appeal judge for the War Crimes Court in West Africa which is funded and supported by the U.S. government. He served as its first president, directing the establishment of a tribunal that is now widely recognised as the most effective of the international criminal courts (the U.S. congress has recently urged surrender to it of Charles Taylor). He is the author of Crimes against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice (The New Press, 1999, 2nd Edition 2002). Last year the U.S. government engaged him to conduct the initial training sessions for the Iraqi judges who will try Saddam Hussein.

Since 1985 Mr Robertson has been commonwealth counsel for Dow Jones Inc. and has defended journalists and editors of the Wall Street Journal, Barrons and the Far Eastern Economic Review in many foreign courts. He represented Jonathan Randall of the Washington Post (with co-counsel Floyd Abrams) in the ICTY case which established privilege for war reporters. One of his greatest successes has been to establish in European law the reporter's right to protect sources in a landmark judgement of the European Court of Human Rights.

After graduating in history and law from Sydney University and postgraduate studies in Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, Mr Robertson embarked on a long and distinguished career as a trial counsel and human rights advocate. He acted for Salman Rushdie in the Satanic Verses case and for many men accused of IRA terrorism. He prosecuted ex-dictator Hastings Banda in Malawi, was involved in the proceedings against General Pinochet, and was counsel to the international commission of inquiry into arms trafficking to the Medellin Cartel.

Mr Robertson currently sits as a Recorder (part-time judge) in London: he is head of Doughty Street Chambers, a Master of the Middle Temple and Visiting Professor in Human Rights law at London University.