Bad People: And How to Be Rid of Them: A Plan B for Human Rights

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Twenty years ago Geoffrey Robertson inspired the global justice movement with his ground-breaking book, Crimes Against Humanity. Since then, the movement has stalled, as nationalism takes hold and populist governments retreat from international courts and refuse to comply with their rulings.

But there is an alternative. The Plan B for human rights looks back to national laws to name, blame and shame abusers. It strips them of their right to enter democratic nations, and of ill-gotten funds they seek to deposit in global banks; and it bars them and their families from schools and hospitals in these countries.

This book explains the background and potential of these laws, which have been called Magnitsky Laws, after Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who died in a Russian jail after exposing state corruption. Early versions of them have been introduced in the US, Canada and Britain, and they are now being considered in Australia.

Geoffrey Robertson argues in this book that the Magnitsky movement offers a potent solution to crimes being committed against humanity, whether in America, Russia, China or Belarus. These abuses are a concern for all human beings, and good people are no longer prepared to tolerate them, in their own country or elsewhere in the world. The Magnitsky laws can show the way forward for the global justice movement in the twenty-first century.

Reviews

"This inspiring book is a call to arms - a demand that governments use their new powers to target sanctions on the perpetrators of human rights abuses. Geoffrey Robertson powerfully argues that a post-pandemic world should refuse to tolerate cruel and corrupt foreigners who currently have access to their banks and universities and their hospitals and casinos. It should become a mission for the human rights movement." - Helena Kennedy "Geoffrey Robertson has been at the forefront to introduce Magnitsky laws ... This timely book shows how democracies with similar laws can send a strong message to officials everywhere." - Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch "Bad People deftly illuminates a bright line from Nuremberg to Magnitsky, and what good people can and must do to fight evil in all its modern forms." - Garry Kasparov, chairman, Human Rights Foundation

Author Bio

GEOFFREY ROBERTSON QC has had a distinguished career as a trial and appellate counsel in Britain and in international courts, and as a UN appeal judge, the first president of its war crimes court in Sierra Leone. He is founder and joint head of Doughty Street Chambers, Europes largest human rights practice, a master of the Middle Temple and a former trustee of the Institute of Contemporary Arts. His book Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice has been an inspiration for the global justice movement, and in 2011 he received the New York Bar Associations Award for Distinction in International Law and Affairs. In 2018, he was awarded the Order of Australia for services to human rights. His autobiography, Rather His Own Man: In Court with Tyrants, Tarts and Troublemakers, was published by Biteback (UK) and Penguin Random House (Australia) in 2018.