Philippe Sands
Philippe Sands is Professor of Law at UCL and a practising barrister at Matrix Chambers. He has been involved in many of the most important international cases of recent years, including Pinochet, Congo, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Iraq, Guantanamo and the Rohingya. He is the author of Lawless World, Torture Team, East West Street, which won the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-fiction, and Sunday Times bestselling The Ratline. He is a contributor to the Financial Times, Guardian, New York Review of Books and Vanity Fair, and makes regular appearances on radio and television. He is also President of English PEN and a member of the board of the Hay Festival.
Image cr. Antonio Olmos
Web of Deceit: The War in Iraq
After WW2, Western democracies united in trying to create a new world order protecting human rights, preventing wars and promoting free trade. Philippe Sands in Lawless World has shown how the US –and the UK- have repeatedly broken those rules. In Web of Deceit Barry Lando demonstrates the cynicism and greed driving foreign intervention in Iraq since it was founded and beyond the reign of Saddam: an excellent illustration of Philippe Sands’ thesis. Amongst other thin...
Pursuing Justice
Thomas Buergenthal is a truly remarkable man, now one of the 15 judges at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, responsible for trying war criminals. He spoke here to Philippe Sands about his journey from Auschwitz to The Hague and his faith in justice. He believes that the recurrence of such atrocities will only be prevented by the international implementation of human rights.
In association with the Pears Foundation.
Laurent Binet: HHhH
Prague, 1942. Two men have been enlisted to kill the head of the Gestapo, two Czechoslovak parachutists sent on a daring mission by London to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, the principal architect of the Final Solution. Laurent Binet joins us from France to discuss his debut novel HHhH, and to ask, when you are a novelist writing about real people, how do you resist the temptation to make things up?
Heydrich’s boss is Heinrich Himmler but everyone in the SS says “Himmler’s bra...
If it’s Not Impossible… The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton
Nicholas Winton, regarded as Britain’s Schindler, was a young stockbroker in 1938 when he masterminded an operation to rescue 669 children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia. His daughter Barbara Winton shares with Philippe Sands the motivations that led her father to undertake such a dangerous quest and the difference that even one person can make to combat the forces of evil.
In association with the Second Generation Network
Raoul Wallenberg: A Righteous Man
Ingrid Carlberg, winner of the prestigious August Prize for her seminal biography, Raoul Wallenberg, is joined by Philippe Sandsto explore the extraordinary life and unique contribution of this ‘Righteous Man’. As Sweden’s Special Envoy to Budapest in 1944, Wallenberg’s heroism and ingenuity at the height of the Holocaust saved countless lives while ultimately costing him his own. Henry Goodman read extracts from the biog...
East West Street
In a last-minute change to the advertised event, Philippe Sands discusses his book East West Street and the images that were significant in its writing.
In association with Index on Censorship.
The Rat Lines
International human rights lawyer Philippe Sands discussed his phenomenal BBC series, The Rat Lines, the story of the post-war Nazi escape route out of Europe. He focused on the intriguing tale of Otto von Wächter, governor of Nazi occupied Krakow and Galicia, indicted for murder, but who escaped justice. Philippe was joined by Eli Rosenbaum, who leads the US government unit responsible for deporting Nazi war criminals, and Hugh Levinson, head of BBC Radio Current Affairs.
Sp...
Jewish Voices
The grand finale of Jewish Book Week 2019, in partnership with World Jewish Relief, is a celebration of the power of words. A stellar line-up, featuring Henry Goodman, Nicholas Hytner, Jason Isaacs, Brian Leveson, Emily Maitlis, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jay Rayner, Philippe Sands, Janet Suzman and Zoe Wanamaker, will read poems, letters and speeches, stretching from the beginnings of Jewish history, right up to the present day. Prepare to be piqued and provoked, dazzled and delighted.
M...
Enemies of the People? How Judges Shape Society
Do judges use the power of the state for the good of the nation? Or do they create new laws in line with their personal views? When newspapers reported a court ruling on Brexit, senior judges were shocked to see themselves condemned as enemies of the people.
But, faced with dreadful legal and moral dilemmas, judges cannot avoid hard choices.
Our panel, former Justice of the UK Supreme Court and Master of the Rolls John Dyson, Barrister Dinah Rose, Philippe Sands, Professor of ...
The Ratline: On the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive
Philippe Sands, award-winning author of the bestselling East West Street, introduces his remarkable new book in a very special live online Q&A presented by The London Library in partnership with Jewish Book Week.
The Ratline is the story of Otto von Wächter and his wife Charlotte. As Nazi Governor of Galicia, he presided over a territory in which hundreds of thousands of Jews and Poles were killed. Indicted for ‘mass murder’ at the ...
The Ratline: On the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive
In partnership with The London Library and Kings Place, Philippe Sands, award-winning author of the bestselling East West Street, discusses his remarkable new book, in conversation with Elif Shafak, streaming live from Kings Place.
The Ratline is the story of Otto von Wächter who, as the Nazi Governor of Galicia, presided over a territory in which hundreds of thousands of Jews and Poles were killed. Indicted for ‘mass murder...
Gamechangers Series – Ruth Bader Ginsberg – Her Life and Legacy
A top panel discusses the life and legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died aged 87 in September, in this Jewish Book Week online event. Nominated to the Supreme Court by Bill Clinton in 1993, she was the first Jewish woman and only the second woman ever to serve, which she did for the next 27 years, becoming a pop culture icon in the process. Barrister and broadcaster Baroness Helena Kennedy, lawyer and author Philippe Sands, and United States federal judge Nina Pillard discuss both the woman...
Making Sense of Hatred
You can buy a ticket to watch this past event until 31st March 2021 by clicking here
With no female word for rabbi existing in French, when Delphine Horvilleur, the third woman to take the role in France, is mentioned in the media – which is often due to her strong feminist stance on social justice issues – they simply call her Madame Le Rabbin. One of the le...
The Father: A Revenge
Niklas Frank was just seven when his father Hans Frank, Hitler’s legal adviser and governor general of occupied Poland, was executed at Nuremberg as a Nazi war criminal. In the decades since he has attempted to come to terms with the enormity of the horror unleashed; The Father: A Revenge is an extraordinary account of a scarred son struggling to comprehend the depravity of the acts that were committed by his father. Whereas other descendants of Hitler’s ...
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