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‘Extradition and the Erosion of Human Rights’
Wednesday 28 January 2015. 6.30pm-8pm
Sheikh Zayed Theatre
Speakers: Gareth Peirce, Professor Saskia Sassen, Professor Jeanne Theoharis
Chair: Professor Susan Marks
Since 9/11 the rules governing extradition from the UK to the US have been systematically relaxed, and safeguards designed to protect against injustice have been dismantled. British citizens are extradited on untested charges to face justice in US courts and prisons, but what standard of justice?
There has been little coverage of what happens in US courts and prisons following these extraditions. The conditions that suspects face in the notorious Supermax prisons, along with the use of secret evidence and material support bans raise serious human and civil rights concerns.
Gareth Peirce is a solicitor who represents individuals who are or have been the subject of rendition and torture, held in prisons in the UK on the basis of secret evidence, and interned in secret prisons abroad under regimes that continue to practice torture. Her many clients have included the Birmingham Six, Judith Ward, the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, and Moazzam Begg. She represented the extradition case of Talha Ahsan and Babar Ahmad.
Saskia Sassen is Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology, Columbia University. She is the author of ‘Expulsions’ and of ‘Territory, Authority, Rights.’ Immigration is one of her major research subjects.
Jeanne Theoharis is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She is the author of numerous books including the recent, award-winning ‘The Rebellious Life of Mrs Rosa Parks’ and co-founder of Educators for Civil Liberties. She has written and researched extensively on terrorism prosecutions in the US federal system post-9/11.
Susan Marks (chair) is Professor of International Law at LSE and member of the Advisory Board for the Centre for the Study of Human Rights.
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Gareth Peirce is the solicitor who represented Talha Ahsan and Babar Ahmad in their extradition proceedings.
Jeanne Theoharis is has written some of the best articles on Talha Ahsan and Babar Ahmad extradition, “material support” law and domestic terrorism trials in USA.
Arun Kundnani with Jeanne Theoharis & Saskia Sassen submitted evidence to the House of Lords extradition select committee.
Jeanne Theoharis & Saskia Sassen wrote the best critique of the ECtHR judgement Babar Ahmad & Others – A European Court gives a green light to torture
in the Nation – available online here
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