During the past year, the name of Matrix Chambers' Philippe Sands QC has become synonymous with the fight to prove that the invasion of Iraq by the UK and US was illegal.

In February, Sands published a book examining the consequences of Anglo-American foreign policy on the global legal order. Since then, he has been one of the most outspoken critics of the politics that led to the war in Iraq.

Sands divides his time between his international, public and criminal law practice and his role as professor of law and director of the Centre of International Courts and Tribunals at University College London.

In December 2004 he was part of the team acting for the terrorist suspects fighting their detention in Belmarsh Prison before the House of Lords, thereby backing up his academic credentials with one of the most important human rights cases heard in the UK to date.