MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
Human rights and the nation state
PAULINE BRYAN recommends a bold defence of the international human rights that are obscured by national political parties
THIN END OF A WEDGE: Greta Thunberg and fellow protesters leave Westminster Magistrates' Court, London after being charged with a public order offence during a protest in central London last year, February 1 2024
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
A New Awakening: Adventures In British Jazz 1966 - 1971, G3, and Buck Owens
JAMES WALSH is moved by an exhibition of graphic art that relates horrors that would be much less immediate in other media
Human Rights: the Case for the Defence
Shami Chakrabarti
Allen Lane, £17.99
YOU can probably tell a lot about a book by who it is that various newspapers ask to review it. Friends get friendly reviews; enemies get critical reviews and dangerous authors are undermined by reviews that attack the writer rather assess the book’s content.
The Daily Telegraph asked Jonathan Sumption, a former Justice of the Supreme Court, to review this book. He does, as would be expected, have significant differences with Chakrabarti but the paper thought it was important enough to commission a serious critique.
The Times, however, invited a PhD candidate whose research is on “the notion of sovereignty within the context of international law.” His review, rather than addressing the issues, tries to undermine the author with ridiculous accusations. For example, he claims Chakrabarti is stating that: “‘rights nationalists’ are no better than wife beaters and child molesters.”
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