Rather His Own Man

In this witty, engrossing and sometimes poignant memoir, a sequel to his best-selling The Justice Game, Australia’s inimitable Geoffrey Robertson charts his progress from pimply state schoolboy to top Old Bailey barrister and thence onwards and upwards to a leading role in the struggle for human rights throughout the world.

He wryly observes the absurdities of growing up as one of ‘Ming’s kids’; the passion of student protest in the sixties and his early crusades for ‘Down Under-dogs’, before leaving on a Rhodes Scholarship to combat the British establishment, with the help of John Mortimer of ‘Rumpole’ fame. There are dramatic accounts of fighting for lives on death rows, freeing dissidents and taking on tyrants, armed only with a unique mind and a passion for justice – on display whenever he boomeranged back to Australia to conduct Geoffrey Robertson’s Hypotheticals.

His is an amazing life story of David and Goliath battles – riveting, laugh-out-loud tales filled with romance and danger, featuring a cast of characters ranging from General Pinochet to Pee-Wee Herman; from Malcolm Turnbull to Mike Tyson; from Nigella Lawson to Kathy Lette and Julian Assange. Throughout his exploits – recounted here with irreverent humour and dashes of true wisdom – Geoffrey Robertson has remained determinedly independent and his own man. He has also, in respect of human rights, changed the way we think.

By:   Geoffrey Robertson QC
Imprint:   knopf australia
Country of Publication:   Australia
Dimensions:   Height: 234mm,  Width: 153mm,  Spine: 43mm
Weight:   822g
ISBN:   9780143784074
ISBN 10:   0143784072
Pages:   528
Publication Date:   March 2018
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Geoffrey Robertson QC is a leading human rights lawyer and a UN war-crimes judge. He has been counsel in many notable Old Bailey trials, has defended hundreds of men facing death sentences in the Caribbean, and has won landmark rulings on civil liberty from the highest courts in Britain, Europe and the Commonwealth. He was involved in cases against General Pinochet and Hastings Banda, and in the training of judges who tried Saddam Hussein. His book Crimes Against Humanity has been an inspiration for the global justice movement, and he is the author of an acclaimed memoir, The Justice Game, and the textbook Media Law. He is married to Kathy Lette. Mr Robertson is Head of Doughty Street Chambers, a Master of the Middle Temple, a Recorder and visiting professor at Queen Mary College, University of London.Geoffrey Robertson QC has had a distinguished career as a trial counsel and human rights advocate. He has handled hundreds of death sentence appeals; prosecuted Hastings Banda and defended Salman Rushdie; acted for terrorist suspects at the Old Bailey and for Human Rights Watch in the proceedings against General Pinochet. He was counsel to the Antiguan Royal Commission which exposed arms traffic to the Medellin drugs cartel and was involved in training the judges to try Saddam Hussein. He serves as an appeal judge for the UN war crimes court in Sierra Leone and has authored landmark decisions on the limits of amnesties, the illegality of recruiting child soldiers and other critical issues in the development of international criminal law.Geoffrey Robertson is founder and head of Doughty Street Chambers and sits as a recorder (part-time judge) in London, where he is a Master of the Middle Temple and visiting professor in human rights law at Queen Mary