The Graham Turnbull Essay Competition

The Law Society's international human rights committee runs an annual human rights essay competition for law students and young lawyers in England and Wales.The competition is named after Graham Turnbull, an English solicitor, who did much to promote respect for human rights.

Mr Turnbull was unfortunately killed in February 1997, at the age of 37, while working as a human rights monitor on the United Nations human rights mission in Rwanda.The international human rights committee is proud to honour Mr Turnbull's commitment to human rights through this competition, the aim of which is to encourage awareness and knowledge of international human rights issues and remedies among young lawyers.The title for the 2000/2001 essay competition is: In what circumstances can humanitarian intervention be justified?This year, the author of the winning essay will be awarded a prize of 500, donated by the firm Lovells.

The winning essay will also be published.

The runner-up will be awarded book tokens to the value of 250, donated by Butterworths.

The winning essay will be chosen from the entrants by a panel of distinguished judges.

In alphabetical order, the judges are:Michael Birnbaum QC, member, Bar human rights committee; Professor Christine Chinkin, Department of Law, London School of Economics; Tricia Feeney, senior policy adviser, Oxfam; P R Ghandhi, Department of Law, University of Reading and member of the Law Society's human rights committee; Christopher Keith Hall, legal adviser, Amnesty International Secretariat; Rodger Pannone, Past President of the Law Society and chairman of its international human rights committee, and; Adam Roberts, Montagu Burton Professor of International Relations and Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford.As the competition aims to promote human rights awareness among young lawyers, it is open to all law students in England and Wales, trainee solicitors, pupil barristers and all solicitors and barristers with three years of admission/call at the closing date.

Entries, which must be a maximum of 2,000 words and unpublished original work, should reach the Law Society by 12 February 2001 together with some form of proof of eligibility.

Please mark your entry for the attention of: Ms Mel James, Secretary to the international human rights committee, the Law Society, 113 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1PL.The judges' decision will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.