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Geoffrey Robertson QC to open Byron Writers Festival

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Words
Zoe Satherley
Published
25 May 2009
One of the world’s leading human rights lawyers, the inspiring and erudite Geoffrey Robertson QC, will give the opening address at this year’s Byron Bay Writers Festival, sponsored by Southern Cross University, who will bring him from London.

Mr Robertson, who is returning to Australia specifically for the Festival, will also engage in a ‘Conversation’ with the ABC's Kerry O'Brien in the SCU Festival Marquee on Saturday morning and in a separately ticketed literary lunch in the Pacific Dining Room at the Beach Hotel on Friday. ‘The Statute of Liberty: how Australians can reclaim their rights’ is his new and compelling book and will be the subject of the ‘Conversations’.

Staff and students of Southern cross University will also have the opportunity to hear Mr Robertson speak when he gives a private lecture on Thursday, August 6, at 11 am, in the Whitebrook Theatre, at the Lismore campus.

Best known for his television series ‘Hypotheticals’, Mr Robertson has been counsel in landmark cases in constitutional and criminal law and has served part-time as a United Nations appeal judge at its war crimes court in Sierra Leone.

In 2008 the United Nations Secretary General appointed him as one of the three distinguished jurist members of the UN’s Internal Justice Council.

The main Festival days are from Friday, August 7 to Sunday, August 9. Festival tickets are available from www. byronbaywritersfestival.com or by phoning Jetset Byron Bay on 6685 6262.

The full Festival program will be officially launched on Thursday, June 4 and be available on the web from Friday June 5.

Photo: Geoffrey Robertson QC, who will open the Byron Writers Festival on Friday, August 7. (High resolution image available on request.)