Philippe Sands
International Lawyer and Author · 1960
Who is Philippe Sands?
Philippe Joseph Sands was born on 17 October 1960 in London to an English father and a French mother, and holds British, French, and Mauritian nationality. A barrister at Matrix Chambers and Professor of Law and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals at University College London, he has practised before international courts and tribunals since 1984 and became Queen's Counsel (now King's Counsel) in 2003. He acted as counsel for Mauritius in the case before the International Court of Justice concerning the separation of the Chagos Archipelago, which culminated in the Court's 2019 advisory opinion. He is also an acclaimed author; his book "The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain's Colonial Legacy" (2022) traces the legal and human history of the Chagos case, while his earlier work "East West Street" (2016) won the Baillie Gifford Prize and the British Book Awards Non-Fiction Book of the Year.
Sources: Philippe Sands, Wikipedia (biographical summary) · Philippe Sands, The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice and Britain's Colonial Legacy (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2022)