Lawless World

What is the effect of international law on domestic actions? How do global rules impinge on sovereignty? Who makes the global rules and how democratic are they? International lawyer Philippe Sands has a unique insider's view of the elites who govern our lives. The sensational revelations he laid out in Lawless World changed the political agenda overnight, forcing Tony Blair to publish damning material that he'd tried to keep hidden. Now, in this updated edition with a shocking new chapter, the full story is finally revealed. With stark honesty, Sands reveals how the US and UK governments are riding roughshod over international agreements on human rights, war, torture and the environment - the very laws they put in place. He considers why global rules matter for all of us and he powerfully makes the case for preserving them, before justice becomes history. A Professor of law at University College London, Philippe Sands QC has written widely on the subject of international law as well as participating in major legal cases with global implications, including taking part in the 1992 Climate Change Convention and legal cases concerning the Belmarsh and Guantánamo detainees. Philippe Sands 2016 book EastWest Street won the 2016 Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction an account of how an invitation to deliver a lecture in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv began a profound quest to unearth the origins of international law and fill the terrible gaps in his own family’s decimated history. Sands writes not as a dull international lawyer but as an astute observer of human situations. Lawless World is also a model of clarity: one is never left gasping for comprehension. Above all, though, it is authoritative and ruthless in its analysis of the conduct of the United States and withering about the role of Britain. It is a book that deserves to be widely read. – The Guardian