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July FriendsI am delighted to announce that this year’s Kenneth Myer Lecture will be delivered by one of the world’s leading human rights barristers, Geoffrey Robertson QC. The lecture will be held on Wednesday 16 August at 6 pm. Many of you will be familiar with Geoffrey Robertson through his engaging and informative Hypotheticals television series, which explored issues ranging from the Australian Constitution to in-vitro fertilisation and AIDS. The most recent Hypothetical, which screened in April, explored multiculturalism in Australia. One of Australia’s most intriguing minds and most eloquent speakers, Geoffrey Robertson in his career as a barrister has argued many landmark cases in the European Court of Human Rights, the House of Lords, the Privy Council and Commonwealth courts. He has been appointed to the Appeals Chamber of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone, and conducted a number of missions on behalf of Amnesty International to South Africa and Vietnam. And, of course, he has appeared before Old Bailey juries for some of the United Kingdom’s most celebrated trials, including the Oz magazine obscenity trial in 1970. He is the author of Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice, the third edition of which will be released in Australia in August, Media Law (with Andrew Nicol QC, 4th edition, 2001), Freedom, the Individual and the Law (8th edition, 1993), and a memoir, The Justice Game (1999). His book, The Tyrannicide Brief (2005) tells the dramatic story of how Cromwell’s lawyers challenged the monarchy. ‘The best way of protecting against terrorism is to insist on the preservation of fundamental liberties,’ he said last year during the release of The Tyrannicide Brief. His passionate belief in human rights will be the subject of this year’s Kenneth Myer Lecture. The lecture series was established in 1990 and is the major annual event for the Friends of the National Library. The lecture was named for Kenneth Baillieu Myer, AC who was chairman of the National Library Council from 1972 to 1982 and a long-time friend of the Library. The prescription for the lecture is simple and based on the views of Kenneth Myer. As a businessman and philanthropist with a wide range of cultural and social commitments, he saw it as an opportunity for an eminent Australian to make a significant statement on a broad subject of particular interest to them. Distinguished Australians who have delivered the Kenneth Myer Lecture in previous years include the Hon. E.G. Whitlam, Dr H.C. Coombs, Professor Fiona Stanley, Emeritus Professor John Mulvaney, Jillian Broadbent and Sir Gustav Nossal, the late Harry Seidler, and Tim Costello. I do hope you’ll be able to join us for what promises to be a deeply engaging and challenging evening. But if you are interested in attending the lecture, I recommend you book early. KATHRYN FAVELLE |
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