10th Whitehall Lecture – Professor Philippe Sands, QC on Human Rights – “Chagos: The Last British Colony in Africa – A Short History of Colonialism, a Modern Crime Against Humanity”
The 10th Whitehall Lecture was given by Professor Philippe Sands QC on Human Rights on 27th October 2021. The Live Broadcast of the lecture followed by Panel Discussion was watched by over 200 people.
This 10th Lecture explored the vexed issue of national land borders and how they variously protect human rights of peoples or threaten the human rights of citizens as control of borders stops international law from protecting them against authoritarian regimes and how their breach in war and colonisation can diminish human rights. The Lecture was broadcast live internationally.
We are grateful for the generous support of Carter Jonas LLP and J Leon.
A recording of the lecture can be watched via the CULS YouTube channel:
Lecturer: Professor Philippe Sands, QC, Professor of Laws and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals, University College London (Cambridge alumnus)
Panel:
Gideon Rachman, Chief Foreign Affairs Commentator, The Financial Times, London (Cambridge alumnus)
Dr Colin Samson , Professor of Sociology and Director of American Studies, University of Essex
Dr. Jeanne Morefield, Associate Professor of Political Theory, University of Oxford; Fellow Quincy Institute, Washington D.C.
Dr. Bonny Ibhawoh, Senator William McMaster Chair in Global Human Rights, McMaster University, Ontario
Professor Philippe Sands QC
is a British and French lawyer at Matrix Chambers, and Professor of Laws and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals at University College London. A specialist in international law, he appears as counsel and advocate before many international courts and tribunals, including the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the European Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court. He serves on the panel of arbitrators at the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
He is the author of seventeen books on international law, including Lawless World (2005) and Torture Team (2008). His book East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity (2016) has been awarded numerous prizes, including the 2016 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. His latest book is The Ratline: Love, Lies and Justice on the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive (2020) about Otto Wächter.
He read law at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and went on to achieve a first-class honours in the LLM course., He spent a year as a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School. From 1984 to 1988 Sands was a Research Fellow at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and the Cambridge University Research Centre for International Law (now the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law).
He was co-counsel for the Philippines in its maritime case against China and advises Mauritius about the status of the Chagos Archipelago.