Three years after Torture Team was published, he received an invitation that, unbeknowst to him at the time, would again change the trajectory of his career. If I were they, he said, referring to the former officials in question, I would think carefully before setting foot outside the United States. The business of books and the merger that wasnt, What happens to the pets that happen to you, Endpapers: A Family Story of Books War Escape and Home, The Ratline: The Exalted Life and Mysterious Death of a Nazi Fugitive, Self-Portrait, 1901, by Pablo Picasso 2023 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society, New York City/Muse National Picasso-Paris Picasso is to art as Kleenex is to tissues. All strands of that thought-provoking exploration run through the city now known as Lviv (formerly Lemberg and Lww), where Sandss Jewish forebears lived and were massacred during the Second World War, and where the two lawyers who conceived of the terms genocide and crimes against humanity were originally educated. (44) 20 7404 3448 p.sands@ucl.ac.uk philippesands@matrixlaw.co.uk Later that year, Bush signed what is known as the Hague Invasion law, giving the president authority to use force should Americans be detained at the court. Sands wont reveal exactly which human-rights authorities he consulted. TV Shows. It all came down to the fifth Law Lord. He wanted to spare us, of course. Jeune enfant, il doit partir en 1941 5 New York avec sa famille pour But his furrowed face and sharp gaze are those of a man who sees the world with a certain type of intensity. He removes his watch and lays it next to a thin packet of talking points, which he rarely checks. Sands wife, Natalia Schiffrin, is the daughter of the late, renowned publisher Andr Schiffrin, and a well regarded attorney and magistrate in her own right. Sands found himself literally at ground zero in the U.S. war on terror as a global professor at New York University Law School on Sept. 11, 2001. But today, he feels that worry cannot override what he calls pressing and vital threats to the environment. . Sands work on Chernobyl turned into his first book, which led to speaking invitations. You could feel the axis of law shift, Sands said. Was he polite enough, did he talk too much, and was he effective? They lived in it from the mid-1950s to the late-1960s. In it, he disproved the administrations narrative that torture had come from the bottom up, as opposed to a top-down administration policy. Is there not a risk that by putting corporations into that definition, that prosecutors will say its less sensitive if we go against the corporation, and we will avoid going against the individual., He continues: And that undermines the deterrent effect because at the end of the dayyou cant put a corporation in prison. Sands jabs his left pointer finger in the air as he emphasizes each word: And what concentrates the mind of the chief executive is that she or he or they will personally be subject to criminal responsibility.. Sands said that he read the protestations of innocence from Bush Administration officials, who blamed a few bad apples for the incidents, with the eye of a barrister. He had no particular desire to pursue environmental law. He has represented a number of countries in boundary disputes that inevitably are about access to, and exploitation of, natural resources. BRUSSELSPhilippe Sands steps off his train at Brussels Midi station and sees a familiar face amidst a flurry of passengers. But Sands and Clapham didnt just write that universal jurisdiction is allowable. Dignitaries included His Excellency the Austrian Ambassador Michael Zimmermann and Head of the Cultural section at the German embassy Dr. Ralf Teepe. WebSands was born in London on 17 October 1960 to Jewish parents. By the time the case had reached Britains House of Lords, the world was watching, and Sands had a front row seat. They backed a U.N. resolution asking the International Court of Justice to issue an advisory opinion on the legality of the use of nuclear weapons. . Our #1 newsletter delivers the weeks climate and energy news our original stories and top headlines from around the web. The New Yorker may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. In two weeks, Belgiums lawmakers would pass a resolution supporting both domestic and international ecocide legislation. If that argument had been used in 1945, that the time wasnt right, the world would be in a much darker place, he said. The environment is not an abstraction but represents the living space, the quality of life and the very health of human beings, including generations unborn, the court ruled. Conscious of this, Sands knows he must deliver. Most people in his orbit clamor for a piece of his time and attention, and he is fairly generous with both. They are now, and forever in the future, at risk of arrest. We hope you enjoy reading another article this month! Philippe Sands relates the wider tragedy of the scandal with nerve and precision. Though Sands prefers to talk in personhe likes to feel what the audience is feeling and adjust his direction and tone accordinglyhe still speaks with a degree of sweep and verve characteristic of a litigator. The idea, they told him, was too vague to be taken seriously. He paused, then cited the last line of the book, as he stood before the swamp that held the remains of his ancestors. The case gave the then 42-year old lawyer a close look at how the U.S. government was cutting legal and ethical corners, if not outright breaking them. Their timing and instincts couldnt have been better. Suddenly Im thrust into this world, and I think that upped the ante, Mr. Sands said. Growing up, Sands had a close relationship with his maternal grandfather, Leon Buchholz. Although that hardly keeps the back half of the refrain from coming round, the companion to He never told me: I never asked. When the Germans invaded, his father, a doctor with the Bata shoe company, was mercifully relocated by his employers to Singapore. His best friend and former colleague, James Cameron, who is also a distinguished environmental lawyer, said that it can be hard to get a word in edgewise on those walks. In particular, he has decried the courts historical focus on African defendants, saying: Africa doesnt have a monopoly on international crime.. His discoveries became the core of a book about his family, the Holocaust and the Nuremberg trials. But actually its never going to happen. Courtesy Wentworth Galleries, Sydney Anyone who has seen the Australian outback knows that it defies description. Its not quite what your parents expected.. Lacking the political and military power to stop the hazardous tests, the affected countries looked to the rule of law for help. Always a devoted son to Bobby (though his stepfather Ken was difficult, not to say awful), he was twice married in his youth, the first time unhappily and the second time for twenty years, to the doctor, writer, and television personality Miriam Stoppard, with whom he raised four sonstheir own boys Will and Ed, and two, Oliver and Barny, from his first marriage. Now, Mr. Sands has tried to draw the strings of all these strangely connected lives together. Alexander recalls Niko as a pragmatic, rule-abiding father with a taste for high culture and DIY, who left his own past unexcavated. Or, as he puts it more tenderly elsewhere in the book, With us he was scrupulous about sharing only the beauty.. . Advocates call for more climate-focused conservation. But, Sands still had a burning desire to know how lawyers like him could so easily subvert the rule of law they swore an oath to uphold. This is a moment and you want to be on the right side of history.. He paced his hotel room, seeming by turns proud and stunned at what he had done. Back in London, he walks on the heath near his home and often coaxes colleagues and friends into joining him. His research produced the 2008 book Torture Team, a searing analysis of the role top American officials played in systematizing torture. He makes jokes and the audience laughs. Samuel Cogolati, 32, is a Belgian lawmaker who has advocated for a domestic and international ecocide crime for years. The global literary legacy of Kurt and Helen Wolff cannot be overstated. (44) 20 7404 3448 p.sands@ucl.ac.uk philippesands@matrixlaw.co.uk Lee describes an early spoof documentary, Tom Stoppard Doesnt Know: Since Stoppard cant make his mind up about anything, he puts two of himself on a discussion panel, arguing for and against boycotting (I find myself in cautious agreement with two opposite views), for and against theatre as social responsibility. Movies. Meanwhile, Kurts son NikoAlexanders fatherwas conscripted after high school into the Reich Labor Service and dispatched to Austria. (44) 20 7404 3448 p.sands@ucl.ac.uk philippesands@matrixlaw.co.uk It is about the wellbeing of the planet. To that end, the definition includes a balancing test between social and economic benefit, on one side, and environmental harms, on the other. And he regrets that he has to decline most of the speaking invitations he receivesabout 10 per week. He grabs a quinoa saladIm trying to eat more vegetarian meals, he saysand takes his place in front of the screen. Mr. Sands, 55, grew up in North London, of modest means, the son of an English dentist and his French mother, Ruth. Having rebuffed Pinochet, Sands went to work for Human Rights Watch on the other side, arguing in favor of the application of universal jurisdiction and against immunity for the former head of state. His stage playsamong them Jumpers, Travesties, The Real Thing, Hapgood, Arcadia, and the trilogy, The Coast of Utopiarange widely in subject matter, but all are densely layered, theatrically complex, engagingly witty, and intellectually consuming. The Wolffs established themselves in the United States and, in time, proved indispensable in introducing European writers to an American audiencenot only those whom Wolff had published in Germany and the French writers brought in by Schiffrin pre, such as Andr Gide, Albert Camus, Paul Claudel, and Charles Pguy, but also writers of younger generations, among them Boris Pasternak, Gnter Grass, and Umberto Eco. Our values change over time. We have to seize the moment now.. As Kurt wrote to Nikos sister, Maria, We see through different eyes, because you were on the inside and I was on the outside. Niko became a chemist, first at DuPont and later with Xerox, and the family settled happily in Rochester, New York. If he feels any pressure it doesnt show. Putting the human at the center of everything has got us into a terrible mess., He pauses, then adds: You have to ask people, do you want to be one of the naysayers like in 1945? Over a four-decade career, Sands has spent his fair share of time in the European Unions capital city, as well as other centers of international commerce, where he regularly rubs shoulders with politicians, diplomats, journalists and, from time to time, royalty. As Cogolati speaks, Sands strokes his beard with his right hand and jots down notes whenever he hears a point he wants to rebut or remember. Subsequently drafted into the army, he was sent first to Brnn (now Brno, in the Czech Republic) and thence through Poland, Galicia, and Ukraine to Dnipropetrovsk, on the Russian front. Arguably, this damning and meticulously researched biography of a leading but lesser-known Nazi exists, above all, to convince Horst of his fathers culpability. They also attended the university where Sands was invited to speak. Sands declined the case. Sands tells the story of those three men in his accalimed 2016 book East West Street, including how Lauterpacht and Lemkin fought against all odds, and in two very different ways, to bring to life the idea that sovereignty can no longer be a shield that prevents mass murderers from accountability. Adifferent legacy of the Third Reich in the United States emerges in Alexander Wolffs memoir, Endpapers: A Family Story of Books, War, Escape and Home (Atlantic Monthly Press, $26). WebSands was born in London on 17 October 1960 to Jewish parents. How the Biggest Fraud in German History Unravelled. Sands takes the podium and begins telling the audience about how the three part series of East West Street (2016), The Ratline (2020), and the yet-to-be-named third book (about Pinochet in London due out in 2024) came into being. But, Sands isnt interested in the esoteric. My view of international law is one step forward, one step sideways. Like Sands, Alexander Wolff is keen, after a generation of silence, to follow the untold stories wherever they might lead. Himself the son of an Austrian First World War hero, Otto never wavered in his commitment to Nazism, and he was swiftly promoted through the partys ranks, in each post amply salaried and awarded luxurious (stolen) accommodations. Hes like a three dimensional chess player, always thinking a few different steps ahead in three different directions and seeing the consequences of things., Sands tells the audience that the time has come for the law to evolve beyond the ideas set forth in 1945. That advocating for an ecocide crime is the next step in Sands long and capacious career says something both about who he is and about the peril of the moment we are living in. (44) 20 7679 4758 Tel. He recalled the moment like a sporting match. The United States finally did so in 1988. Boye said last week of Sands, Let me just say that he played a very big role in my thinking. WebSands was born in London on 17 October 1960 to Jewish parents. All Leon would say was: Its complicated, its the past, not important, which Mr. Sands understood to mean: Dont pry. At one point, Sands shares that his work on the campaign has made him question his own professional choices. (44) 20 7404 3447 Fax. What Our Fathers Did (2015) has at its center a trip the three men took to Lviv, where Horstmild, amiable, lost-seemingrepeatedly refuses, to the frustration of Sands and Frank, to acknowledge his fathers complicity in the Nazi atrocities. EDINBURGH Like many Holocaust survivors, his grandfather said little about the past. The couple was at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, where they stood next to Adolf Hitler greeting a crowd. Its not that he was opposed to the idea, but his innate conservatism as a legal tactician made him wonder whether the timing was right. Seventy-five years later, that family is still convulsed by that single decision, Sands said. 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