MEDIA RELEASE
TUESDAY 9 OCTOBER 2012
SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE PRESENTS
Geoffrey Robertson
MULLAHS WITHOUT MERCY
JOAN SUTHERLAND THEATRE, SUNDAY 16 DECEMBER
What is worse: Iran getting the bomb, or the US bombing Iran?
Can a state that mass-murders its own people be trusted with a weapon that can mass-murder the people of other states?
Will our children ever live in a world without nukes?
Geoffrey Robertson will discuss his new book, Mullahs Without Mercy live in-conversation at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday 16th December as part of Ideas at the House. Geoffrey Robertson will address the gravest danger to both the peace and the climate of the world: the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the hands of brutal and/or unstable regimes. Robertson exposes Iran’s international crimes against political prisoners, more heinous than the Japanese death marches or the killings at Srebrenica, perpetrated by the very same Mullahs who now crave nuclear weapons. Robertson cautions that the US has no legal right to attack Iran at this stage, and nor does Israel, hypocritically denouncing Iran for seeking a weapon that it already secretly possesses. As terrorists come close to capturing some of Pakistan’s ill-gotten bombs, and North Korea prepares nuclear payloads for ballistic missiles that might reach Melbourne, the world is entering a period of nuclear scramble more dangerous than the Cold War. Robertson will show how we have got into this mess, by failing to treat the bomb as the ultimate violator of the human right to life. He will demonstrate how international law has gone wrong – and how it can be put right in time for our children at least, to live without fear of nuclear disaster.
Geoffrey Robertson Q.C. is founder and head of the world’s largest human rights practice, in London. He has prosecuted Hastings Banda, defended Julian Assange and acted for Human Rights Watch in the proceedings against General Pinochet. He served as the first president of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (which indicted Charles Taylor) and as a ‘distinguished jurist’ member of the UN’s Internal Justice Council. He has argued landmark cases at the European Court of Human Rights and The Hague war crimes tribunals, and has held office of Recorder (part-time judge) for many years in London. His books include Crimes Against Humanity – The Struggle for Global Justice; The Tyrannicide Brief (the story of how Cromwell’s lawyers mounted the first trial of a head of state; Statute of Liberty and an acclaimed memoir, The Justice Game. He is a Master of the Middle Temple and a Visiting Professor at the New College of the Humanities. In 2011 he was awarded the New York Bar Association’s prize in international policy and law.
DETAILS
WHO: Geoffrey Robertson - Mullahs Without Mercy
WHEN: Sunday 16 December, 5.30pm, 90 mins
WHERE: Joan Sutherland Theatre, Sydney Opera House
TICKETS: $35
General Public on-sale Friday 12 October
View past Ideas at the House talks at Sydney Opera House PLAY play.sydneyoperahouse.com
MEDIA CONTACT
Alexandra Barlow / abarlow@sydneyoperahouse.com / 2 9250 7825