Rest in Peace, John Jones QC

It is with great sadness — and ongoing shock — that I report the unexpected passing of John Jones QC, one of the great international lawyers. Accomplishments are not important at a time like this, but here is a snippet from his Doughty Street International profile to give readers  a sense of what a spectacular barrister John was:

John has acted as Counsel in 5 cases before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (“ICTY”) – in two cases (Naser Oric and Ante Gotovina/ Mladen Markac), his clients were acquitted of all charges on appeal. Two of his other ICTY cases were not completed due to the death of the acused (Mehmed Alagic and Rasim Delic). In the fifth case, he appeared as Counsel as part of the amicus curiae team (Krajisnik). John was also the first head of the Defence Office of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) and legal officer at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), contributing to  the first Judgment on genocide. He was one of only 8 counsel assigned as defence counsel at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), established to try those allegedly responsible for the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in an explosion on 14 February 2005.

I had the great honour of considering a John a good friend. I first got to know him during the Gaddafi case, when he and I regularly exchanged emails about Libya’s complementarity challenge. And then he encouraged me to join the Doughty Street team as an academic member. John was, quite simply, a wonderful person — warm, funny, supportive. I never met anyone who didn’t like him, even people who had to face him the courtroom. I know I liked him. Very much.

I will miss John dearly, and my heart goes out to his beloved wife and two remarkable children. We all deserved to have John longer, but we’re lucky to have had him at all.

Requiescat in pace, John.