Sir Nigel Rodley obituary

Human rights lawyer committed to eradicating torture

Few lawyers have devoted more of their lives to human rights than Sir Nigel Rodley, who has died aged 75. His work ranged over a wide field but focused particularly on defining the rules against torture and devising means to enforce them.

He was Amnesty International’s first legal officer, starting in the early 1970s, when the charity had to be content with writing grovelling letters to torturers, begging them to desist. By the time he left, 17 years later, it had the legal tools to put them in jail. Chief of these was the UN convention against torture, which Nigel helped to draft and which later tripped up the Chilean dictator General Augusto Pinochet. He led Amnesty’s campaign for the UN to establish a special rapporteur on torture – a role that he filled with great distinction from 1993 to 2001. His work was mainly behind the scenes and did not involve courtroom battles or outspoken advocacy; he was really a human rights diplomat.

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