Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle For Global Justice - Softcover

Robertson, Geoffrey

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141024631 ISBN 13: 9780141024639

Publisher: Penguin, 2006

Synopsis

In this new edition of Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice, Geoffrey Robertson QC explains why we must hold political and military leaders accountable for genocide, torture and mass murder.

He shows how human rights standards can be enforced against cruel governments, armies and multi-national corporations. This seminal work now contains a critical perspective on recent events, such as the invasion of Iraq, the abuses at Abu Ghraib, the killings in Darfur, the death of Milosevic and the trial of Saddam Hussein.

Cautiously optimistic about ending impunity, but unsparingly critical of diplomats, politicians, Bush lawyers and others who evade international rules, this book will provide further guidance to a movement which aims to make justice predominant in world affairs.

'A beacon of clear-sighted commitment to the humanitarian cause ... impassioned ... exemplary ... seminal'
  Observer

'States are the biggest bullies in the world. In this book, Geoffrey Robertson shows how they can be tamed'
  Mail on Sunday

'A devastating critique of the inadequate response of the international community to violations of basic freedoms ... a formidable achievement'
  Evening Standard

'His arguments are exceptionally clear ... simple and lucid prose'
  Sunday Telegraph

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, The Case of the Pope and The Tyrannicide Brief, an award winning study of the trial of Charles I.

About this title

Review:

The Kosovo intervention and the extradition process against General Pinochet have helped write effectively into the books of International Law an idea that for a long time the self-interest of most states excluded: the idea that there are crimes against humanity and that action against those takes precedence over national sovereignty and most standard international agreements. Geoffrey Robertson is distinguished as a defence lawyer, and Crimes Against Humanity is a stunning indictment of the traditional toleration of inhumanity for the sake of a quiet international life which almost makes one glad that he never prosecutes. His ruthless forensic anger is as impressive as his grasp of the history of ideas:

"Human rights were said, in the fin-de-siecle buzzphrase, to be "culturally relative"--by such statesmen as Dr. Mahartir (who found an independent judiciary inconvenient to his own aspirations in Malaysia) and President Suharto (the incarnation of nepotistic corruption)... The championship of "Asian values" has weakened with Asian economies, and in 1998 Dr. Mahartir's behaviour... made many of his countrymen protest in favour of old-fashioned Western values... The idea of human rights was in the ascendant; the stage was set for their third historical period: the age of enforcement".

Starting from the formulation of the idea of rights and moving expeditiously through the Nuremburg trials and the elevation of rights to a stronger position as a way of creating a context for those trials other than mere victor's justice, he describes the gradual formulation of rights and ways of enforcing them while being quite clear of the hypocrisy of many of those involved. Law and justice, however, are of greater importance to Robertson than the men and states who make them; this is an impressive account which combines liberalism with realism. -- Roz Kaveney

Review:

His arguments are exceptionally clear and comprehensible, and legal complexities are rendered into simple and lucid prose (Sunday Telegraph)

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0141024631
• ISBN 13: 9780141024639
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 800