Philippe Sands

Born in London to a British father and French mother, Philippe Sands was educated at the College School in Hampstead and studied law at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he obtained his undergraduate degree, and a year later passed his master’s degree with first-class honours. He is Professor of Law and Director of the Centre on International Courts and Tribunals at University College London and has worked in several esteemed universities including Harvard Business School, Kings College London and Paris I (Sorbonne). During his career, he has also appeared as counsel and advocate for the International Court of Justice, the European Court of Justice, the European Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court, among others.

In 2016, Sands published East West Street, his first non-fiction book for a general audience, which combines the birth story of international law and human rights in the aftermath of the Second World War with the discoveries the author made about his own family history while researching the topic. Suspenseful, moving and described as part history, part memoir and part legal thriller, it earnt Sands the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2016 and has been translated into over twenty languages, winning various international literary prizes as well. His second book, The Ratline (2020), revolves around the disappeared high-ranking Nazi Otto Wächter, shedding light on the multiple ‘ratlines’ through which he escaped justice. The Last Colony, Sands’ third bestselling work that came out in 2022, explores the harrowing consequences of the British Government’s secret decision to offer the United States a base at one of the islands in the Chagos Archipelago in 1965, which led to the establishment of the British Indian Ocean Territory and the forced exile of the island’s entire population.