Legal opinion by Geoffrey Robertson QC on the 1915 Genocide of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey launched in the House of Lords

Distinguish lawyer claims that the British Government has misled the Parliament and public about this crime against humanity

December 14, 2009. Geoffrey Robertson QC's legal opinion on "Was there an Armenian Genocide?" was launched in the House of Lords. The event was organized by the British-Armenian All-Party Parliamentary Group in cooperation with the Armenian Legal Initiative Group, the Nor Serunt Publications and the Welsh Centre for International Affairs. Representatives from the British Parliament, the Foreign Office, Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, other NGO's and Armenia Community were present during the launch.

In his opening remarks, Ambassador Gabrielyan emphasized the importance of the report which proves that  the reluctance of the British Government to recognize the Armenian Genocide is not because of the lack of proof but merely because of political inexpediency. Ambassador Gabrielyan stressed that the recent rapprochement between Turkey and Armenia is never inrended to sacrifice the recognition and condemnation of the Armenian Genocide.

Mr. Robertson criticized the British Government, especially the FCO for continuously misleading the British public and Parliament on the issue of the Armenia Genocide. In his opinion, the Foreign Office fails to back its position denying the fact of the Armenian Genocide with valid legal arguments. Mr. Robertson was confident that if the tragic events of 1915 occurred now, all the civilized world would have labeled them as Genocide, because the description of the term is clearly stated in the UN Convention on the Prevention of Genocide. He also condemned the British Parliament for not requesting the legal basis for Foreign Office's denial of the 1915 Genocide of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey.

Geoffrey Roberston is an internatioanlly renowned human rights lawyer, the founder and head of Doughty Street Chambers. He is a 'distinguished jurist' member of the United Nations Justice Council, having served as the first President of the Special Court in Sierra Leone.

He has argued many landmark cases in media, constitutional and criminal law in the European Court of Human Rights, the House of Lords, the Privy Council and Commonwealth courts. He has recently appeared in the Court of Final Appeal for Hong Kong, the Supreme Court of Malaysia, the Fiji Court of Appeal, the High Court of Australia and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

In 2008 Mr. Robertson was commissioned by the Armenian Legal Initiative Group to conduct an independent research on the legal and factual issues regarding the Armenian Genocide of 1915-1916. The "Legal Opinion" was published by the Doughty Street Chambers in October 2009.