On 29th May, Professor Philippe Sands QC gave the PEN Hay Lecture at this year’s Hay Festival in Wales. The lecture was titled ‘Words, Memory and Imagination - 1945, and Today’, and covered issues relating to international criminal justice and the protection of human rights, during WWII and in the present-day political climate. Prof Sands also referred to his recent experience in Istanbul, where he gave the Mehmet Birand Ali Lecture on World Press Freedom Day.
Prof Sands said:
‘Lauterpacht believed - passionately - that we should concentrate on the protection of the individual, that every single human being had minimum rights under international law. That was a revolutionary idea back then… His minimum rights included freedom of speech and expression.’
Prof Sands is President of English PEN, a charity that campaigns internationally for freedom of literary expression.