Lord Steyn is one of Britain’s most senior judges. In his interview with Jon Snow on Channel 4 News he vehemently condemns the widespread lawlessness of the US and Britain and intimates that in his view both administrations could well be guilty of war crimes on the basis of international law established after the defeat of fascism in World War Two. In 2003, and since, he has condemned the US's Guantánamo Bay prison camp, calling the imprisonment of "terrorist suspects" there a "monstrous failure of justice" that constitutes "utter lawlessness". This was reported at the time as breaking with the convention that law lords do not speak out on politically sensitive issues. Lord Steyn’s stand has been that judges "have the duty, in times of crisis, to guard against an unprincipled and exorbitant" government response. [For the full text of Lord Steyn’s November 2003 speech, Guantánamo Bay: The Legal Black Hole, see Year 2003 No. 119, December 11, 2003.]

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