As featured on the BBC's 'Political Thinking with Nick Robinson.'
An astonishing memoir from the Holocaust survivor who oversaw the world’s first genocide trials and has advised the ICC on crimes in Israel and Gaza.
‘Little did the Nazis know that this boy … would grow up to become an eminent interna-tional lawyer, driven by a lifelong desire to make it impossible for such atrocities to hap-pen again.’ — Daily Mail
When the Second World War began, Theodor Meron was a Jewish-born boy of just 9. He survived ghettos, camps and unimaginable atrocities, but lost most of his family, finding sanctuary in British Palestine after the Holocaust. Now, more than eight decades later, Judge Meron is a recognised world leader in both the scholarship and practice of international criminal justice—having served as the president of three UN tribunals, delivering landmark decisions on genocide and war crimes.
This extraordinary memoir revisits Meron’s time as a legal adviser to governments, often swimming against the tide; as a restless diplomat, a boundary-pushing scholar and ultimately a ground-breaking international judge. Meron has given his life to the service of justice. He is famous for his 1967 opinion finding Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank to be illegal under international law, an opinion he issued as a legal adviser to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. More recently, he has advised the International Criminal Court on potential crimes in the Russia–Ukraine war, and in Israel and Gaza since 2023.
The founding institutions of international justice today face unprecedented threats. Meron’s life story could not be a better timed reminder of the importance of accountability.
- Meron’s extraordinary journey spans ghettos, war crimes tribunals, and the halls of international power, offering a rare personal window into the making of modern justice.
- Meron played a pivotal role in landmark legal decisions, including the genocide in Srebrenica and the recent ICC investigations into the Israel-Gaza conflict.
- A memoir for our times: as international law faces new challenges, Meron’s life story is a powerful reminder of why justice matter—and what’s at stake when it’s under threat.
