Geoffrey Robertson AO KC

Geoffrey Robertson AO KC is a founding head of Doughty Street Chambers, the London set he helped establish as a home for barristers committed to human rights, civil liberties and public law. A trial and appellate counsel with an international reputation, he has been recognised as Human Rights Law Expert of the Year in England at the Corporate INTL Global Awards 2025, an accolade that reflects a career spent at the frontier of the discipline in both domestic courts and international tribunals.

Called to the Bar in 1973 and appointed Queen's Counsel in 1988, Robertson has appeared as counsel in landmark cases across media law, criminal appeals, national security and human rights. He acted in Goodwin v United Kingdom, which established important protection for the confidentiality of journalists' sources before the European Court of Human Rights, and in the Privy Council decision Pratt & Morgan v Attorney General for Jamaica, which reshaped the approach to death-row delay and contributed to the commutation of many Caribbean death sentences. His appellate work has included the successful appeal of the "Winchester Three" and defence work in some of the most closely watched trials at the Old Bailey.

Alongside his practice at the English Bar, Robertson has held significant international judicial office. He served as an appeal judge and President of the Special Court for Sierra Leone between 2002 and 2007, sitting in judgment on war crimes and crimes against humanity, and has appeared in matters before United Nations bodies. This blend of advocacy and adjudication gives him an unusually rounded command of international criminal and human rights law, a field on which he writes as well as practises.

He is a prolific author whose works include Crimes Against Humanity, a study of the international justice movement now in its fourth edition, and the practitioner text Robertson & Nicol on Media Law. A Rhodes Scholar who read for the BCL at Oxford after graduating in law from Sydney, he has taught as a visiting professor and lectured widely, and in 2011 received the New York Bar Association's award for achievement in international law and policy.

At Doughty Street Chambers, Robertson works within a set known for its depth in human rights, media, criminal defence and international law, representing individuals, journalists, campaigners and governments in cases that frequently test the boundaries of established doctrine. His practice spans defamation and free-expression disputes, extradition and national-security matters, and appeals with constitutional significance, and he is regularly instructed where a case demands both forensic rigour and a strategic understanding of how domestic and international forums interact. The Corporate INTL Global Awards 2025 recognition affirms his standing as a leading authority in human rights law in England.