Conor Gearty 1957-2025

Conor Gearty has died at the age of 67. He was a founder member of Matrix chambers and a professor of human rights law at LSE. His books include On Fantasy Island: Britain, Europe and Human Rights and Homeland Insecurity: The Rise and Rise of Global Anti-Terrorism Law. His first piece for the LRB, in 1994, was on political sleaze (‘the Tories in particular looking with each passing year increasingly like a gaggle of white-collar criminals on day release for a family wedding’). He also wrote on the SAS killing of three IRA members in Gibraltar, the Scott Inquiry into the sale of British arms to Iraq, Michael Collins, the Hutton Inquiry into the death of David Kelly, human rights law and war crimes in Gaza. A piece on the ways that the UK Supreme Court is ‘quietly editing the Human Rights Act out of existence’ will appear in a forthcoming issue of the paper. He will be much missed.