The Liberal Democrat peer and leading public and constitutional lawyer is still making waves. Now 70, he is best known as the architect of the race relations laws as well as a driving force behind the Human Rights Act 1998. Clever and tireless (if inclined to impatience) when seized of an issue, he was invited to join Gordon Brown’s “Government of all the talents” as an adviser on constitutional reform — a fitting tribute to his work. He studied history and law at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Harvard Law School. In 1968 he co-founded the Runnymede Trust anti-discrimination think-tank (chairing it from 1991 to 1993) and was a special adviser to Roy Jenkins, then Home Secretary, at the Home Office. He moved with Jenkins from the Labour Party to found the SDP in 1981. His casework, colleagues say, both in the European Court of Human Rights and in domestic courts, has definitively changed the culture on human rights; points he argued two decades ago and were laughed out of court are now accepted — a formidable contribution. He works from Blackstone Chambers but is often in Cork where he has a house: in 2005 he was appointed Adjunct Professor of the Faculty of Law at University College, Cork.

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