This short
book examines the career and achievements of Lord Kilmuir (David Maxwell Fyfe),
a British politician and former Lord Chancellor who is mainly remembered for
some poor and unpopular decisions but who nevertheless made a considerable mark
on twentieth-century legal development. After the Second World War, Kilmuir not
only excelled as a fellow prosecutor with Justice Robert Jackson at Nuremberg
but also played a significant role in the effort to restore European unity,
particularly through his involvement in the drafting of the European Convention
on Human Rights. Drawing on archival and other primary sources, this book
considers Kilmuir's initiatives both at home and in Europe, and concludes by
marking out his achievements as a pro-European Conservative who not only
favoured the right of individual petition to a supranational,
Convention-enforcing court but who also favoured Parliament legislating to
replicate Convention norms in domestic law.
Praise for
the book:
“This short
book goes a long way to explaining the Tory commitment to the ECHR at its
inception. The case for our continued commitment to the European Court of Human
Rights remains compelling. Duxbury's triumph is to explain why Kilmuir would
agree.” -Sara Ibrahim
“This text
is enlivened with acute asides on matters from the 'research assessment
exercise' for British universities to the 'non-political' judge.”
- Ross Cranston
Further information is available here.
