Geoffrey Robertson is an Australian-British barrister, academic, author and broadcaster. He is the founder and joint head of Doughty Street Chambers. Robertson is a Master of the Bench at the Middle Temple and a visiting professor at Queen Mary University of London.
Geoffrey Ronald Robertson was born in Sydney, Australia. He grew up in Eastwood, a suburb of Sydney. Robertson attended Epping Boys High School before earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1966 and a Bachelor of Laws with First-Class Honours in 1970 from the University of Sydney. He then won a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Civil Law from University College in 1972.
Robertson began his legal career in 1973 and was appointed QC in 1988. He gained prominence for his role in several high-profile English criminal trials, such as the OZ, Gay News, and Matrix Churchill cases. His work as a human rights lawyer earned him recognition, including the title of Australian Humanist of the Year in 2014.
Besides his legal career, Robertson has had a prominent literary career. His first notable book, Reluctant Judas (1976), examined issues of political betrayal. In Obscenity (1979), he explored censorship laws. His work, The Justice Game (1998), is included in the New South Wales school curriculum.
In The Tyrannicide Brief (2005), Robertson detailed the prosecution of Charles I by John Cooke, which led to the king's execution. His revision of Crimes Against Humanity (2006) provided detailed case studies on human rights and war crimes, including the Balkans Wars and the 2003 Iraq War. He controversially justified the Hiroshima bombing but questioned the necessity of the Nagasaki bombing.
Robertson's 2010 book, The Case of the Pope, accused Pope Benedict XVI of protecting pedophiles within the Catholic Church, arguing the Vatican should not be considered a sovereign state. In An Inconvenient Genocide: Who Now Remembers the Armenians? (2014), Robertson presented a legal argument asserting that the 1915 massacres of Armenians constituted genocide.
Robertson's latest book, The Trial of Vladimir Putin (2024), addresses the prosecution of Vladimir Putin for his actions against Ukraine. Robertson argues that the invasion of Ukraine by Putin constitutes a serious crime of aggression under international law. He compares it to the Nuremberg trials and suggests that Putin could be tried in absentia, setting a significant precedent in international law.
