A professor at prestigious universities – London and Harvard – and a world-renowned lawyer in the field of human rights, regularly working at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Philippe Sands is a leading authority on international law. In recent decades, he has been involved in the most important political and legal cases, from Pinochet’s arrest to Milosevic’s conviction. He is a regular contributor to the Financial Times, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, Vanity Fair, CNN and the BBC, as well as the author of the acclaimed book East West Street: on the origins of genocide and crimes against humanity. He also personwrote the BBC documentary What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy. In an exclusive interview for Electra, Philippe Sands talks to Afonso Dias Ramos about the contemporary world, what is wrong with it and what threatens it, legal actions against climate change, and what has altered as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Taking his book as the underlying thread, he also talks about his family roots, his life, his professional, civic and humanitarian work, and the causes he defends and has defended. An idealist-cum-realist, he talks about the future as something that is still undecided and depends upon us.