Philippe Sands

Not since World War Two has the nature and adequacy of international law provoked such a debate, both in Britain and abroad. A great number of international agreements have been adopted over the past sixty years, establishing minimum standards of behaviour with which states and other international actors must undertake to comply. They affect people in every country, and cover just about every...

We were appointed to the Commission on a Bill of Rights in March 2011 by Nick Clegg. The circumstances were not auspicious, and we were concerned from the outset that our composition – all white, almost all male, almost all lawyers and London-based – would undermine our ability to speak with any legitimacy. The Conservatives had come into government committed to tearing up the...

Since it would make it harder to obtain the support of cabinet and Parliament, and the public, Goldsmith’s advice – the 7 March document permeated with an understanding of the uncertainty and risk of going to war – was deliberately withheld from cabinet. The redacted and recast document of 17 March that went to Parliament, cabinet and the people, was an instrument of persuasion that aimed to create the impression that Goldsmith had advised that the war was unequivocally lawful. The document did mislead. It was the product of calculated manipulation enabled by silences and lies, a grand and disastrous deceit.