Steve Crawshaw at the Pilecki Institute in Berlin! | Accompanying Event: “Unknown Legacies of the Nuremberg.” - Instytut Pileckiego

Join us a special event accompanying our two-day international conference “Unknown Legacies of the Nuremberg Trial: Regional Approaches and Perspectives in East Central Europe.”

We will discuss Steve Crawshaw’s latest book, Prosecuting the Powerful: War Crimes and the Battle for Justice, with the author himself. Crawshaw is the former UK director at Human Rights Watch, former UN advocacy director in New York, and former chief foreign correspondent at the Independent. His book is a historical tour de force tracing the long struggle to use international law to hold government leaders to account.

Book Talk & Signing "Prosecuting the Powerful: War Crimes and the Battle for Justice" with Steve Crawshaw 

03.12, 11.00 | Pariser Platz 4A, 10117 Berlin | Registration: https://forms.gle/aAWQSiXaCdBvHQNX9

View the full conference agenda “Unknown Legacies of the Nuremberg Trial: Regional Approaches and Perspectives in East Central Europe.” (click). 

'A compelling account of a revolutionary moment in history,' Philippe Sands, The Spectator

'Prosecuting The Powerful isn't just compelling and very moving, it has all the force of a well-crafted thriller. I literally couldn't stop reading it,' John Simpson, BBC World Affairs Editor

'In this powerful book, Steve Crawshaw, who has devoted his career to the pursuit of international justice, eloquently confronts one of the toughest dilemmas of the moment: how to hold war criminals to account.' Anne Applebaum, author of Autocracy Inc

'Powerful, timely and moving,' Baroness Helena Kennedy KC

Guardian Book of the Day

Excerpt from the Blurb:

"Crawshaw includes recent stories from the front lines of justice in Ukraine, Israel/Palestine and at The Hague, as well as his earlier encounters with war criminals like Slobodan Milošević. He tells the stories of those who have demanded protection for civilians and accountability for war criminals - from the Swiss businessman who is the reason why we have the Geneva Conventions today and the prosecutors at Nuremberg to the Syrian police photographer who helped put one of Bashar al-Assad's torturers behind bars. He also follows the extraordinary unfolding story of two of the world's most powerful and well-connected leaders currently under indictment at the International Criminal Court in The Hague."

"Steve Crawshaw is former UK director at Human Rights Watch, former director of the Office of the Secretary-General at Amnesty International and former chief foreign correspondent at the Independent. He is the author of books on Russia, Germany, and creative protest. His latest book, Prosecuting the Powerful (Bridge Street Press) is published in February 2025.

Steve Crawshaw, author of Prosecuting the Powerful: War Crimes and the Battle for Justice, has written and worked on the themes of human rights and justice for more than thirty years.

He worked for Granada Television before joining the Independent at launch in 1986, where his roles included Russia and East Europe Editor during the east European revolutions and Balkan wars, then Germany bureau chief and chief foreign correspondent. In 2002 he joined Human Rights Watch as UK director and then UN advocacy director in New York. In 2010 he joined Amnesty International as international advocacy director and Director of the Office of the Secretary General. In 2018 he became policy and advocacy director at Freedom from Torture.

His previous books are Goodbye to the USSR (Ryszard Kapuściński: ‘fascinating and vivid’, 1992), Easier Fatherland: Germany and the Twenty-First Century (John le Carré: ‘rare and long overdue’, 2004), Small Acts of Resistance (with John Jackson, foreword by Václav Havel, 2010) and Street Spirit: The Power of Protest and Mischief (foreword by Ai Weiwei, 2017).

He studied Russian and German at the universities of Oxford and St Petersburg, and lived in Poland from 1978 to 1981."