Conor Gearty

Conor Gearty is a Professor of Human Rights Law at the London School of Economics and founder member of the Matrix Chambers.

Conor's practice as a barrister is primarily in human rights law and in public law, in addition to which he has developed a specialism in the law and practice of war pensions, representing many ex-servicemen in litigation against the Ministry of Defence. He has appeared in the High Court, the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords. Conor has been a frequent adviser to judges, practitioners and public authorities on the implications of the Human Rights Act. He has also recently been a consultant for BP, analyzing the human rights aspects of their development of Iraq’s Rumaila oilfield.

Apart from his work at the Bar, Conor is Professor of Human Rights Law at the London School of Economics where he also was, for seven years, Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, an inter-disciplinary research centre.
 
Conor has published many books and articles on terrorism, civil liberties and human rights, some with Keith Ewing (his former colleague at King's) eg. Freedom under Thatcher (1990); The Struggle for Civil Liberties (2000), and others as sole author eg. Terror (1991) and Principles of Human Rights Adjudication (2004). In 2005, he gave the prestigious Hamlyn lectures, afterwards published as a book Can Human Rights Survive? (2006). His Civil Liberties book was published in 2007 and a collection of his essays appeared in 2008. In February 2011 Conor completed his serialized book on the web, The Rights Future. His most recent books include Debating Social Rights (with Virginia Mantouvalou Hart, 2011) and Liberty and Security (Polity, February 2013). In November 2012 his Cambridge Companion to Human Rights Law (co-edited with Costas Douzinas) was published by Cambridge University Press.
 
Conor has given specialist evidence before various parliamentary committees. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and a bencher of the Middle Temple. He has received honorary degrees from Roehampton and Brunel universities.