Richard J Rogers

Richard J Rogers is a British human rights lawyer, specialising in war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and ecocide.

Rogers was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1994 and practiced as a criminal defence barrister in London. He then moved to San Francisco, was admitted in 1997 to the State Bar of California and worked at Coudert Brothers.

He is the founding Partner of Global Diligence LLP, and (co)founded two civil society organisations - Climate Counsel, a non-profit specialising in environmental justice, and LexCollective, a global network of public interest law firms.

UN international criminal tribunals - genocide and war crimes cases

In 1998, Rogers joined the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and helped draft judgements on the Rwandan genocide - ''Kayishema and Ruzindana'', Jean Kambanda, Nahimana et al, and ''Baglishema''.

At the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia participated in the field investigation against Slobodan Milosevic, the former President of Yugoslavia. At the hybrid court in Sarajevo he worked on the Srebrenica case, involving the murder of over 8000 Bosnian men by Serb forces.

In 2007 Rogers was appointed by the United Nations as the Principal Defender at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), set-up to prosecute former leaders of the Khmer Rouge. Collaborating with lawyers Jacques Vergès, Francois Roux and others, he organised the defence of, Nuon Chea (Bother Number Two), Ieng Sary (Khmer Rouge Foreign Minister), Khieu Samphan (Khmer Rouge Chairman) and Duch (Head of S21). He confronted the issue of judicial meddling by the Cambodian Government and called political interference "the greatest challenge for the defense."

He was the international lawyer for Ao An, a former Khmer Rouge accused of genocide, whose case was dismissed by the ECCC Supreme Court.

Ecocide and environmental justice

Rogers worked with Jojo Mehta of Stop Ecocide Foundation to establish the 12-member Independent Expert Panel for the Legal Definition of ecocide. The Panel, Chaired by Philippe Sands KC with Rogers and Kate Mackintosh as Deputies, released its proposed international law definition of ecocide in June 2021. He advocates for the increased prosecution of ecocide cases and co-founded Ecocide Law Advisory.

Rogers has worked closely on environmental causes with David Lammy (appointed UK Foreign Secretary in 2024), promoting new laws on ecocide, speaking at COP 26, and through Climate Counsel.

Rogers submitted comments to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on environmental protection under the Rome Statute and the increased risk of armed conflict due to global warming. Writing with Sudanese lawyer Moneim Adam, he noted that "Sudan's war serves as an alarming and prescient reminder of the causal link between environmental stress and devastation, and human conflict."

Rogers filed a case before the International Criminal Court (ICC) alleging crimes against humanity committed by the Cambodian ruling elite against poor Cambodians. It was the first crimes against humanity case to focus on mass abuses and environmental destruction. According to Global Witness, the case "paves the way for others to be pursued at the international level and could signal a ground-breaking shift in how land deals are done globally." Speaking to the BBC, Rogers said the ICC "is the Cambodian people's last resort to obtain justice and escape the cycle of human rights abuses and impunity." The Cambodia case featured in the Al Jazeera documentary, Cambodia's Deadly Politics.

Following the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, he published an Op Ed with Patrick Alley, founder of Global Witness, warning that "Jair Bolsonaro's ascension to the Brazilian presidency increases the threat of environmental disaster not just in Brazil, but it has global implications for climate change catastrophe." He later investigated mass crimes committed in the Amazon against rural land users and filed a case before the ICC alleging crimes against humanity, supported by Greenpeace Brazil and ''Observatorio do Clima''.

Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, he was engaged to work with the Ukrainian Prosecutor-General's office on the investigation and prosecution of environmental crimes. Speaking to The Times, Rogers noted that the environmental war crimes prosecutions in Ukraine "will set important precedents for future conflicts."

Human rights work for persecuted groups and individuals

Rogers is the international lawyer for Gurpatwant Singh Pannun - a leading advocate for Sikhs separatism and founder of Sikhs for Justice - who was the target of an assassination attempt by Indian government agents on U.S. soil, according to U.S. prosecutors. The plot was foiled when undercover FBI agents posed as assassins for hire. According to the New York Times, " ..ecretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Mr. Biden himself — have confronted India with a message that Washington would not tolerate assassinations across North America." Working with law firm BraunHagey and Borden LLP, Rogers filed a civil claim on behalf of Mr Gurpatwant in New York demanding damages from the Indian government.

As lawyer for Cambodian opposition leader, Sam Rainsy, he filed a case before the U.S. federal courts demanding that Facebook release information about Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's fake 'likes' bought from click farms in India. In an interview with the Guardian, Rogers said "This is the promotion of fake news and propaganda by the authoritarian Hun Sen regime, using Facebook. They are helping to prop up a dictator." Hun Sen later threatened to kill Sam Rainsy if he tried to form a government.

Rogers represented Cambodian political commentator, Kem Ley, who was assassinated in broad daylight three days after he urged an investigation into the alleged corruption of the family of Prime Minister Hun Sen.

He has acted as the international lawyer for Burundian opposition leader, Alexis Sinduhije, a journalist turned politician named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2018, and known for "fostering peace between the Tutsi and the Hutu in his war-torn country".

Rogers has worked as the international lawyer for the National Movement for Liberation of Azawad, an armed Tuareg separatist group in Northern Mali and the Transitional Government of Tamil Eelam, a Sri Lankan Tamil government in exile.

Truth commissions, parliaments, and panels

In 2018, he was engaged by Wavel Ramkalawan (then Opposition Leader), to help establish the Seychelles Truth Commission. He worked with the parliamentary committee and the then President of the Seychelles, Danny Faure, to design the legal framework.

Rogers has spoken at European Parliament committee hearings on ecocide. Testifying to land grabbing in South East Asia before the U.S. Congress House Committee on Foreign Affairs he stated: "As a global phenomenon, land grabbing has become one of the greatest human rights challenges of our age."

References

Living people
20th-century births

Year of birth missing (living people)

21st-century British people

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