On Liberty: a conversation with Shami Chakrabarti

Speaker(s): Shami Chakrabarti
Chair: Professor Conor Gearty
Recorded on 6 October 2015 at Old Theatre, Old Building

To mark the paperback release of On Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti will be in conversation with Conor Gearty and taking questions from the audience and Twitter. You can send your questions via Twitter to @LSELaw using #LSEShami.

In On Liberty Shami explores why our fundamental rights and freedoms are paramount in upholding democracy, and how they are coming under unprecedented pressure today. Since 9/11 governments have decided that human and civil rights, and the rule of law, are often too costly, and have offered an apparently simple trade-off: greater security in exchange for less freedom.

Drawing on her own life and work, and on Liberty’s campaigning on issues including privacy, 42 day detention and ASBOs, Shami shows why our rights are indispensable and looks to the future. These freedoms, for which generations have fought, both protect and empower us, and curb the power of the mighty – and what’s more, Shami warns, once gone, they will be almost impossible to recover.

Shami Chakrabarti is Director of the civil liberties advocacy organisation Liberty. She was a member of the panel of the Leveson Inquiry and is Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University and an alumna of LSE.

Conor Gearty (@conorgearty) is Director of the Institute of Public Affairs and Professor of Human Rights Law at LSE.

LSE Law (@lselaw) is an integral part of the School's mission, plays a major role in policy debates & in the education of lawyers and law teachers from around the world.

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