Profile: Philippe Sands
Updated on 02 February 2006
Background on the man behind 'Lawless World'
Philippe Sands has written many books and articles, but with the publication of Lawless World last year, he weighed in to the most fraught legal debate of the time.
Not only did he believe that the invasion without a new resolution from the UN security council was illegal. He also felt that the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, who wrote the legal opinions which informed the UK's decision to invade, had only done so under pressure from the White House.
"The attorney general's published opinion - that a non-existent authority to use force can 'revive' at the behest of three of the 15 members of the security council - makes a mockery of the UN system. How could the attorney general have been prevailed upon to lend Britain's name to such a weak and dismal argument?" he wrote.
These extraordinary claims were widely covered at the time, but the new edition of the book has extra documentary evidence. (See The White House Meeting Memo
Sands is one of Britain's top international lawyers. He combines an academic interest in law, as a professor at University College, London with an ongoing business as a practicing barrister.
He is a founder member of Matrix Chambers, the same high-powered human rights practice which is home to the Cherie Booth, wife of the Prime Minister.
His legal interest has covered environmental law, human rights and international law. His first book examined the implications of the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, and he has been involved in many high profile cases at the international court, including defending the interests of the British Detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and the efforts to extradite the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet to Spain.
Born in 1960, he studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He was called to the bar in 1985.
45-year old Mr Sands achieved the high legal rank of Queen's Counsellor (QC) in 2003, at the same time joining in calls for title, which many see as an anachronism, to be abolished.
He lists among his influences his wife, Natalia Schiffrin, who is also a lawyer. He has called her the "best lawyer I know, constantly advising me not to do things I will later regret." They have two daughters and one son, and live in North London.
His Who's Who entry lists no recreations, but he has admitted to a fondness for Leonard Cohen.
When listing his influences, he also mentions Ed Burke, the economics teacher at what he describes as "my middle-class school in north London".
"He took our class down a coal-mine when we were 15 and opened our eyes to the way people work and live."
Mr Sands has written that the spark of his interest in international law "go back to the decimation of my mother's family in the 1930s, in the premodern international law world which allowed massacre with impunity."
It was also sparked by a case in Virginia, which took place while he was teaching a short course in Law at a University in Richmond, Virginia.
A Paraguayan was convicted of a rape and murder of a woman in Arlington, not far from Virginia. He had been denied access to consular officials before the trial, at which he had eventually pleaded guilty.
The Paraguayan government complained, and the Clinton government offered an apology, but refused to stay the execution. The case ended up in the International court, which ruled that the US should suspend the execution until it had ruled. Neither the president, the Governor of Virginia, or the Supreme court intervened, and the man was executed.
Since then he has documented the increasing number of occasions when, in the aftermath of 9/11, he says the US (with British collusion) have flouted international law - Guantanamo Bay, the invasion of Iraq, and the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib.
