I was invited to The Hague last month to deliver the Hague Lecture on International Law, to an invited audience of diplomats, international judges and others at the British Embassy.
No expert on public international law, I concentrated instead on the threat of terrorism – real and perceived – and the role played by the courts of Europe in relation to the UK’s attempts to counter it.
My title was inspired by Yaval Noah Harari’s brilliant observation:
“Terrorists are like a fly that tries to destroy a china shop. The fly is so weak that it cannot budge even a single teacup. So it finds a bull, gets inside its ear and starts buzzing. The bull goes wild with fear and anger, and destroys the china shop.”
The text of my Hague Lecture is here.
