Review of 'East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity' by Philippe Sands (Weidenfield and Nicolson, 2016)

Authors

  • Pragna Patel Southall Black Sisters

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31273/fd.n8.2025.1990

Abstract

‘The protection of the individual, and the idea of individual criminal responsibility for the worst crimes, would be part of the new legal order. The sovereignty of the state would no longer provide absolute refuge for crimes on such a scale, in theory at least’. (East West Street)

First published in 2017, Philippe Sands’ East West Street is a moving and unforgettable story that interweaves a deeply painful and personal journey into the history of his family living under Nazi rule, with a parallel journey that traces the origins of the legal concepts of ‘genocide’ and ‘crimes against humanity’. These concepts have since come to form the foundations of international human rights law and could not hold more resonance today as we enter a dangerous period marked by the slide towards authoritarianism and the retreat from an international rules-based world order created painstakingly in the aftermath of the holocaust and the second world war.

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Author Biography

  • Pragna Patel, Southall Black Sisters

    Pragna Patel is the co-founder and co-director of Project Resist, an organisation focused on work with marginalised and vulnerable black and minority women and girls throughout the UK. She is the former director and founding member of the Southall Black Sisters (SBS) advocacy and campaigning centre where she worked from 1982 to Jan 2022 with a break in 1993 when she left to train and practice as a solicitor. Over those 40 years, she led SBS in some of its most important cases and campaigns on gender-based abuse, immigration and religious fundamentalism. She was also a founding member of Women Against Fundamentalism, and she has written extensively on race, gender and religion. She continues with her work in these areas at Project Resist.

Image 11: Peace of Jerusalem (2021) by Malak Mattar

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Published

2025-07-14

Issue

No. 8 (2025): Human Rights in an Age of Populist Authoritarianism

Section

Book Reviews

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Pragna Patel

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