BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY : AFRO-BRITISH " PETER HERBERT " IS A LEADING HUMAN RIGHTS BARRISTER WHO HAS A DISTINGUISHED CARER AT THE ENGLISH BAR GOES INTO THE " HALL OF BLACK GENIUS "

                   

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BLACK        SOCIAL           HISTORY
                                                                                                                                          PETER HERBERT'S

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Donald Peter Herbert is a leading human rights barrister who has a distinguished career at the English Bar having appeared in the European Court of Human Rights and as Lead Defence Counsel before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Peter has led in high profile civil rights cases throughout England and Wales. Peter has extensive experience at the Family Bar having appeared in the Victoria Climbie Inquiry, with leading work including Judicial Review , employment discrimination cases, inquests and civil actions against the police.

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JUDICIAL CAREER

Peter has a wealth of Judicial experience, being only one of a handful of minority Judges who sit in three separate jurisdictions. Peter has sat as a part time Immigration Judge, since 1996.since 2002 peter has sat as a Recorder in the Crown Court and as a Part time Employment Tribunal Chair. Peter also Chaired two Mental Homicide Inquiries sitting in a quasi- Judicial capacity.more...

INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE

Peter has an extensive international career having appeared in cases in the Caribbean, and before the United Nations (ICTR) in Tanzania as Lead Counsel, He has been an observer for Amnesty International Amnesty International at the Appeal of the Grenada 17 Coup leaders appeal hearing and represented the “show bomber” Richard Reid in a humanitarian capacity. His diverse activities have included organising the first US Department of Justice Conference in London jointly with SBL in 1998. Peter has spoken at the Commonwealth Magistrates Association Conference in Cape Town, Accra and Malawi and received the American Bar Association, “Spirit of Excellence Award” in 2002 and the National Bar Association Human Rights Award in 1998. more..

PETER HERBERT'S INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE

In 1988 Peter led a delegation of some 24 UK Black lawyers to attend the National Conference of Black Lawyers at Howard University in Washington DC, where he met Angela Davis and others activists from the US civil rights movement. In 1993 Peter hosted Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Society of Black Lawyers 25th anniversary. In 1990 Peter spoke at the 50th anniversary of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) in New York with the late Rudy Narayan, the founder of the SBL.

Peter was a keynote speaker at a conference at Columbia University in Toronto in 1992 on policing and spoke at a community meeting in James and Finch protesting against police shootings of black youngsters in the Ontario district. Peter has participated in many international conferences from those of the National Bar Association in Chicago in 1996 where he interviewed Minister Louis Farrakhan in his home to a conference of Commonwealth Judges and Magistrates in Malawi where he spoke about human rights abuses in the fight against terrorism in 2004.

In 2007 Peter led a delegation of lawyers and specialists to Georgia and Washington DC to discuss hate crime and juvenile justice on behalf of the Foreign Office. Peter addressed the Georgian State Legislature committee on Hate Crimes and went on to the Department of Justice in DC to discuss matters of common interest. In 2008 Peter led a larger delegation in his capacity as a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority to tour Ontario and Ottowa to meet a variety of NGO and Government agencies on the same issue. Peter was quoted extensively in the local media during those engagements.

Since 2004 peter has been appointed Lead Counsel in two cases before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The first was the “Media trial”, representing the late Jean Bosco Barayagwiza before the Appeal Chamber of the ICTR and the second, still current before the ICTR is to represent the former Minister of Planning Dr Augustin Ngirabatware. Peter has become an outspoken critic not of the need to try those responsible for genocide but of the failure of the ICTR and other Tribunals to live up to the international standards of a fair trial and not just to be a Court where only the “loosers” are placed on trial . He recently spoke at a conference with his colleagues Courtney Grifiths Q.C. and Lord Gifford Q.C. at the Sri Lankan Lawyers Association seminar on International Criminal Law.

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