Elizabeth Wilmshurst

Who is Elizabeth Wilmshurst?

Elizabeth Susan Wilmshurst CMG, fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs at Chatham House and Professor of International Law at University College London, is best known for her role as Deputy Legal Adviser at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom on the eve of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

She was educated at King's College London.

She resigned on 20 March 2003, three days after Lord Goldsmith's final advice to the British government reversed her legal opinion that the invasion was illegal without a second United Nations Security Council Resolution to SCR 678.

Although her resignation was public at the time, the detailed reasons and resignation letter were not, and caused a stir when they were released two years later.

Juliet Stevenson played Wilmshurst in "A Simple Private Matter", an episode of the BBC series 10 Days to War.

On 26 January 2010, Wilmshurst gave evidence to the Iraq Inquiry about the legality of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the advice given to then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on the same day as her former boss, Sir Michael Wood.