Everything about Geoffrey Robertson totally explained
Geoffrey Ronald Robertson QC (born
30 September 1946 in
Sydney,
New South Wales) is an
Australian-born human rights
lawyer,
academic,
author and
broadcaster. He holds
dual Australian and
British citizenship.
Geoffrey Robertson is joint head of
Doughty Street Chambers
. He serves as a
Master of the Bench at the
Middle Temple, a
recorder and visiting professor at
Queen Mary, University of London.
Biography
Geoffrey Robertson was born in
Australia and grew up in the
Sydney suburb of
Eastwood, attending
Epping Boys' High School. He obtained his law degree from the
Sydney University Law School before winning a
Rhodes Scholarship to study at
Oxford.
Robertson married author
Kathy Lette in
1990 and currently lives with her and their two children in
London.
Legal career
Robertson became a barrister in
1973. He became a
QC in
1988. His became well known acting for the defence in the celebrated English criminal trials of
Oz,
Gay News, the '
ABC Trial',
The Romans in Britain (the prosecution brought by
Mary Whitehouse), Randle & Pottle, the
Brighton bombing and
Matrix Churchill. He has also acted in well known libel cases, including defending the Guardian against
Neil Hamilton MP. He has appeared in civil liberties cases before the
European Court of Human Rights and in other courts across the world. He sits as an appeal judge at the
UN Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Media career
Over a twenty year period, often with long intervals in between, Robertson has hosted an
Australian television series of programmes called
Geoffrey Robertson's Hypotheticals. These shows invite notable people, often including former and current political leaders, to discuss contemporary issues by assuming imagined identities in hypothetical situations.
Writing career
Robertson has written several books. One of them,
The Justice Game is on the school curriculum in
New South Wales,
Australia.
His latest book,
The Tyrannicide Brief, details the story of
John Cooke, who prosecuted King
Charles I of England in the treason trial that led to his execution. After the
Restoration, Cooke was convicted of high treason and
hung, drawn and quartered.
In his
2006 revision of
Crimes Against Humanity, Robertson deals in detail with
human rights,
crimes against humanity and
war crimes. The book starts with the history of human rights and has several case studies such as the case of General
Pinochet of Chile, the
Balkans wars, and the latest war in
Iraq. His views on the United States'
atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan can be considered controversial. He considers the
Hiroshima bomb was certainly justified, and that the second bomb on
Nagasaki was most probably justified but might have been better if it was dropped outside a city. His argument is that the bombs, while killing more than 100,000 civilians, were justified because they pushed Emperor
Hirohito of
Japan to surrender, thus saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of
Allied forces, as well as Japanese soldiers and civilians.
Bibliography
- The Tyrannicide Brief, Chatto & Windus, 2005
- Crimes Against Humanity - The Struggle for Global Justice, Alan Lane, 1999; revised 2002 (Penguin paperback) and 2006
- The Justice Game, 1998 Chatto; Viking edition 1999
- Media Law (with Andrew Nicol QC), Fourth edition, November 2001, Sweet and Maxwell
- Freedom the Individual and the Law, Penguin, 1993 (7th ed)
- Geoffrey Robertson's Hypotheticals - A New Collection, ABC, 1991
- Does Dracula Have Aids?, Angus and Robertson, 1987
- Geoffrey Robertson's Hypotheticals, Angus and Robertson, 1986
- People Against the Press, Quartet, 1983
- Obscenity, Wiedenfeld and Nicolson, 1979
- Reluctant Judas, Temple-Smith, 1976
Further Information
Get more info on 'Geoffrey Robertson'.
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