Dr Charles Adeogun-Phillips > Guernica 37 Chambers > London, England > Barrister Profile

Dr Charles Adeogun-Phillips

02035977130 clerks@guernica37.com View profile View profile

Position

Since returning to private practice in 2010, Charles specialises in the areas of international human rights law, international criminal law, international civil service law, complex cross border ‘white-collar’ and business crimes, international investigations, and cross border asset recovery.   As part of his practice in the area of international human rights, between 2013 and 2014, he successfully represented Christopher Mtikila, the outspoken Tanzanian politician, in his watershed and precedent-setting case against the Tanzanian Government, before the African Court on Human and People’s Rights, resulting in amendments to Tanzania’s electoral laws to allow for independent candidacy for election to public office, as a violation the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, the International Convention of Civil and Political Rights, and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.   The Mtikila vs. Tanzania case was the first case to be heard by the said Court on its merits since its inception in 2004.    It was also the first case to be decided by the Court in favour of the Applicant and the first case before the Court on the issue of reparations. Charles’ practice in the area of ‘white-collar’ and business crimes has focused mainly on representing sovereign States, major oil and gas corporations, and ultra-high-net-worth individuals in complex corruption and fraud cases, often with cross-border elements.  In 2016, Charles was appointed by the Federal Republic of Nigeria to lead the unprecedented corruption investigations and trials of several senior judicial officers in Nigeria, including that of Sylvester Ngwuta, JSC a Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

Career

Charles is an accomplished international lawyer and former lead international prosecutor and head of special investigations at the UN.  What he had initially though would be a short-term sabbatical from the rigours of regular practice as a criminal defence solicitor in the City of London, eventually lasted well over a decade.  Between 1998 and 2010, he had a pioneering and distinguished legal career at the United Nations, where he successfully led teams of international prosecutors in 12 precedent-setting genocide trials before the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), making him arguably one of the most experienced and successful genocide prosecutors in history.  His elevation to the rank of senior trial attorney before an international court at the age of 34, by the then Chief Prosecutor of the ICTY/ICTR, Ms. Carla Del-Ponte (former Attorney-General of Switzerland), was equally unrivalled. He also, between 2007 and 2008, served as head of special investigations in the Office of the Prosecutor, under the leadership of Justice Hassan Jallow. (The current Chief Justice of The Gambia).   With the 1945 trials of major war criminals before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg serving as his only precedent, Charles’ work as a lead prosecutor, fighting for justice, on behalf of over 800,000 victims of the worst crimes ever known to mankind, placed him in the forefront of several pioneering developments in the field of international humanitarian and criminal law, cumulating in his citation in the maiden edition of Creswell’s “Who’s Who in Public International Law” in 2007 and in the International Year Book and Statesmen’s Who’s Who in 2011.

Languages

English, French, Pidgin English, Yoruba

Memberships

Bar of England and Wales (2021)

Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn

Chartered Institute of Arbitrators of England & Wales;

Law Society of England and Wales; Elected Member, Membership Committee,

International Criminal Court Bar Association; Council Member, Section on Legal Practice,

Nigerian Bar Association.

Education

LL.M(London) 1994;

LL. B (Warwick) 1989;

Repton School