Christopher Greenwood
Encyclopedia
Sir Christopher John Greenwood CMG
Order of St Michael and St George
The Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is an order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent, later George IV of the United Kingdom, while he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III....

 QC
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...

 (born 1955) is a duly elected (6 November 2008) member of the International Court of Justice
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands...

. He is a barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...

 and professor of international law at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

. He has regularly appeared as counsel before the Anglo-Welsh courts
Courts of England and Wales
Her Majesty's Courts of Justice of England and Wales are the civil and criminal courts responsible for the administration of justice in England and Wales; they apply the law of England and Wales and are established under Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.The United Kingdom does not have...

, the International Court of Justice
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands...

 and the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...

.

Family and career

Sir Christopher is the son of Captain Murray Guy Greenwood and Diana Maureen Greenwood, née Barron. He married Susan Longbotham in 1978. They have two daughters, Catherine (born 1982) and Sarah (born 1985).

Sir Christopher was educated at Wellingborough School
Wellingborough School
Wellingborough School is an independent fee-paying day school in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England. It was established in 1595 and is one of the oldest schools in the country.-History:...

. He then studied law at Magdalene College
Magdalene College, Cambridge
Magdalene College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary Magdalene...

, University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...

, where he was awarded a BA
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 (Law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

) (First Class Hons) in 1976, LLB
Bachelor of Laws
The Bachelor of Laws is an undergraduate, or bachelor, degree in law originating in England and offered in most common law countries as the primary law degree...

 (International Law) (First Class Hons) in 1977, and MA in 1981. He was called to the bar
Call to the bar
The Call to the Bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party, and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received a "call to the bar"...

 at the Middle Temple
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...

 in 1978 and was appointed Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...

 in 1999. In 2002 he was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the Queen's Birthday Honours List
British honours system
The British honours system is a means of rewarding individuals' personal bravery, achievement, or service to the United Kingdom and the British Overseas Territories...

 for services to international law. He was knighted
Knight Bachelor
The rank of Knight Bachelor is a part of the British honours system. It is the most basic rank of a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not as a member of one of the organised Orders of Chivalry...

 in the 2009 New Year Honours.

The Legality of Using Force Against Iraq

Greenwood is well known for the October 2002 legal opinion tendered to the British government, entitled The Legality of Using Force Against Iraq.
The legal opinion, which he signed in his capacity as a law professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

, has been used to justify that the invasion
2003 invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq , was the start of the conflict known as the Iraq War, or Operation Iraqi Freedom, in which a combined force of troops from the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland invaded Iraq and toppled the regime of Saddam Hussein in 21 days of major combat operations...

 by Britain, the United States and allied powers was sanctioned by the UN Security Council. However, the opinion was concluded in the month before the adoption of UN Resolution 1441 and the conclusion was stated to be dependent on one of three conditions being satisfied. These conditions (he said) were (1) "if the UN Security Council adopts a fresh resolution authorizing military action against Iraq and any conditions set out in that resolution are met" - this did not happen; or (2) "under existing Security Council resolutions on the basis that the Security Council considered that (a) Iraq is in material breach of those resolutions" and (b) "that breach constitutes a threat to international peace and security in the Gulf area. This would not require a fresh Security Council authorization of military action". The question of whether these conditions were satisfied is controversial and unclear, since there was no further resolution which might have rendered the point clear. Alternatively, (3) "under the right of self-defence if an armed attack by Iraq against the United Kingdom or one of its allies was reasonably believed to be imminent. This would not require any action by the Security Council." In practice, this condition turned on whether the UK (for example) reasonably believed that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction which might be launched 45 minutes after an order to do so, and that the government of Iraq were likely to use those weapons. Although a dossier published by the British Government said that they did (the so called "dodgy dossier
Dodgy Dossier
Iraq: Its Infrastructure of Concealment, Deception and Intimidation was a 2003 briefing document for the Blair Labour government...

" examined during the Hutton Inquiry
Hutton Inquiry
The Hutton Inquiry was a 2003 judicial inquiry in the UK chaired by Lord Hutton, who was appointed by the Labour government to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of David Kelly, a biological warfare expert and former UN weapons inspector in Iraq.On 18 July 2003, Kelly, an employee...

), it later turned out that they did not, and, moreover, the basis of the stated belief to the contrary has been challenged. This, too, therefore, remains a highly controversial question.

Greenwood has also acted as counsel for the government of the United Kingdom in relation to a number of cases in both domestic and international courts: the Ojdanic case in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia; Federal Republic of Yugoslavia v. United Kingdom in the International Court of Justice; the General Assembly request to the ICJ for an advisory opinion on the Palestinian wall (UK observations on admissibility); R (on the application of the European Roma Rights Centre and others) v. Immigration Officer at Prague Airport and others; and R (on the application of Abbasi and Mubanga) v. the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs and others.

Notable appearances include:
  • Libya
    Libya
    Libya is an African country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....

     v. United Kingdom
    United Kingdom
    The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

     (Aerial Incident at Lockerbie
    Lockerbie
    Lockerbie is a town in the Dumfries and Galloway region of south-western Scotland. It lies approximately from Glasgow, and from the English border. It had a population of 4,009 at the 2001 census...

    ) ICJ Reps., 1992, p. 3; ICJ Reps. 1998, p. 3
  • Case concerning Legality of Use of Force (Yugoslavia
    Yugoslavia
    Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....

     v. United Kingdom) ICJ Reps, 1999
  • R. v. Bow Street Magistrates, ex parte Pinochet (No. 1) [2000] 1 AC 147, [1998] 3 WLR 1456 and (No. 3) [2001] 1 AC 147, [1999] 2 WLR 827 [1999] 1 WLR 188 (Court of Appeal)


The Globe and Mail reported on 31 August 2007 that Greenwood had been hired by the Canadian Department of National Defence for an opinion on the responsibility Canada had for captives apprehended in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...

. The legal issue is whether Canada can use the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

mandate to override its international treaty obligations.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK