Search results for ""Author Geoffrey Robertson""
Verso Books The Putney Debates
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.
£14.60
Vintage Publishing The Tyrannicide Brief: The Story of the Man who sent Charles I to the Scaffold
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.
£14.31
Biteback Publishing Bad People: And How to Be Rid of Them: A Plan B for Human Rights
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.
£16.14
HarperCollins Publishers Lawfare
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.
£10.40
Biteback Publishing An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers the Armenians?
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.
£10.86
Biteback Publishing Who Owns History?: Elgin's Loot and the Case for Returning Plundered Treasure
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.
£17.89
