Review of ‘East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity’ by Philippe Sands

Read Pragna Patels review of Philippe Sands book is featured in Feminist Dissent Issue #8 (2025): Human Rights in an Age of Populist Authoritarianism (Edited by Stephen Cowden, Jane Gabriel, Gita Sahgal, Amrita Shodhan and Rashmi Varma).

“The protection of the individual, and the idea of individual criminal responsibility for the worst crimes, would be part of the new legal order. The sovereignty of the state would no longer provide absolute refuge for crimes on such a scale, in theory at least.” (East West Street)

First published in 2017, Philippe Sands’ East West Street is a moving and unforgettable story that interweaves a deeply painful and personal journey into the history of his family living under Nazi rule, with a parallel journey that traces the origins of the legal concepts of ‘genocide’ and ‘crimes against humanity’. These concepts have since come to form the foundations of international human rights law and could not hold more resonance today as we enter a dangerous period marked by the slide towards authoritarianism and the retreat from an international rules-based world order created painstakingly in the aftermath of the holocaust and the second world war.

Read Pragna’s full review here.