Quotes of the Day

Human-rights lawyer Gareth Peirce has clients in some of Britain's most high-profile cases, including detainees at Guantánamo Bay and two of those accused last month of plotting to detonate explosives aboard flights between Britain and the U.S. Inspired by the U.S. civil-rights movement, Peirce first made headlines by securing the release of falsely imprisoned i.r.a. suspects. She spoke to Time's Jessica Carsen about law, justice and her portrayal in a Hollywood movie.

What are the greatest threats to human rights today? The clear willingness of governments who have a history of considering that rights are entrenched and inalienable, to redefine for themselves what a right is from their own political perspective. And, even more disturbingly, to attempt to avoid compliance with international obligations to which they signed up 60 years ago.

What role should lawyers play? The profession bears a heavy responsibility for this legal experimentation — it's a badge of shame. So the profession must also try to put it in reverse. If lawyers see how the law is being misused, they must scream about that.

What frustrates you most? In the U.K. we have been in court arguing that we shouldn't use evidence obtained through torture, that people should not be locked up without trial. American colleagues have been fighting identical battles. Those cases were won, but the status quo remains the same.

But how do we balance the protection of human rights with the need to curb terrorism? There is every mechanism already available to the state to properly detect and detain and investigate. What is not just unacceptable, but plain wrong, is to say that a person suspected of terrorism deserves the rule book being torn up — basically a retreat to medieval rack and thumbscrew, and that's what Guantánamo is all about.

Haven't the threats changed? These are simply not new problems. Every country has faced its challenges. Look at the way [James] Madison and [Thomas] Jefferson corresponded when they were trying to hammer out what rights a people should have. They had just fought off a tyrant, but in the calm of the aftermath they perceived their own propensity to one day also act tyrannically, so they legislated against themselves.

The British government is considering profiling Muslim air passengers in the wake of recent security concerns. Is that justifiable? Have we so quickly forgotten the lessons of the Birmingham Six, imprisoned for 16 years because they were in transit to Ireland carrying mass cards? Is possession of the Koran now to form the same wrong basis for suspicion? 25 years of conflict in Northern Ireland was fueled, not solved, by targeted stigmatization.

I.R.A. suspects the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six spent years in jail before you secured their release. Do their cases offer lessons for today? I think these cases were an object lesson in how not to do things. It was a very belated dawning that unless an entire national community and the reasons for the conflict were understood, and a political solution devised, there could never be an end to the armed struggle. Now that message has been ignored — there is a completely baffling and frightening failure to understand what motivates political Islam.

So you see parallels with the current situation? Speaking to one of the Guildford Four recently, his reaction is: "Those poor guys, those Muslims — that's exactly what happened to us. Has nobody learned?"

The Guildford Four's story was the subject of a film, In the Name of the Father, with Emma Thompson playing you — yet you recoil from publicity. Did that make you feel uncomfortable? I haven't seen the film, although I thought it was extremely important that the story of the Conlon family be told. I think the lawyer was just used as a dramatic device. I wasn't important at all.

But Gerry Conlon compared you to Joan of Arc in his memoir. I think that was his story, how he saw me at the time. I think maybe he was wearing rose-colored spectacles!

• JESSICA CARSEN
• Human-rights lawyer Gareth Peirce on the dangers of forgotten history lessons