Fabula in Theory: Philippe Sands

Due to high interest, the event Fabula v teoriji: Philippe Sands on March 30 will take place in a larger venue, the Linhart Hall.

The closing event of this year’s Fabula festival will feature a theoretical-humanistic focus, inviting reflection on history, responsibility, and the role of the individual. Philippe Sands, eminent lawyer, human rights advocate, and author, will present his landmark book Return to Lemberg.

Return to Lemberg intertwines legal history, personal narrative, and literary inquiry. Sands traces his family’s hidden past, uncovering connections between his grandfather and two pivotal 20th-century jurists, following the fate of the two men who shaped the notion of genocide and crimes against humanity, Raphael Lemkin and Hersch Lauterpacht. Both lived in Lemberg, now Lviv in Ukraine, long a contested crossroads of Central Europe, where enduring legal concepts of justice, memory, and responsibility first took shape.

Sands blends the personal and the global, weaving family history with the evolution of international law, while narratives of loss and exile converge with the Nuremberg Trials. The book is both a historical account and a meditation on how crime, guilt, and memory are transmitted across generations, and how legal principles emerge from human experience.

A widely published author and commentator, Philippe Sands studied law at the University of Cambridge. He is Professor of Public Understanding of Law at University College London, and has appeared as counsel and advocate before international courts and tribunals. Sands served as president of English PEN. Return to Lemberg has won the Baillie Gifford Prize, the Jewish Quarterly Prize, the Montaigne Prize, and was named Guardian Historical Book of the Year.

The discussion, led by Dr. Vasilka Sancin, will explore how personal histories shape our understanding of law, and how remembering crimes can create ethical obligations for the future. The event will be held in English with simultaneous translation into Slovenian.

Join for an evening reflecting on how individual stories shape our collective world – and why understanding the past is vital for a responsible future.