Donald Nicholls, Baron Nicholls of Birkenhead

The Right Honourable The Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead PC
Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom
Second Senior Lord of Appeal in Ordinary
In office 1 October 2002 – 10 January 2007
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Preceded by	The Lord Slynn of Hadley
Succeeded by	The Lord Hoffmann
Lord of Appeal in Ordinary
In office 3 October 1994 – 10 January 2007
Preceded by	The Lord Templeman
Succeeded by	The Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury
Personal details
Born	(1933-01-25) 25 January 1933 (age 84) United Kingdom
Alma mater	Liverpool University Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Occupation	Judge

Donald James Nicholls, Baron Nicholls of Birkenhead, PC (born 25 January 1933), is a British lawyer and retired Law Lord (Lord of Appeal in Ordinary).

Nicholls was educated at Birkenhead School, before reading Law at Liverpool University and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He was called to the bar in 1958 as a member of the Middle Temple, becoming a Queen's Counsel in 1974. He was made a High Court judge on 30 September 1983, receiving the customary knighthood. On 10 February 1986, he was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal and subsequently appointed to the Privy Council. He became Vice-Chancellor of the Supreme Court on 1 October 1991. He was appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary on 3 October 1994 and consequently created a life peer as Baron Nicholls of Birkenhead, of Stoke d'Abernon in the County of Surrey.

In 1998, Nicholls and the other Law Lords came to the international fore in deciding whether Augusto Pinochet could be extradited to Spain. Three lords, including Nicholls, rejected the argument that Pinochet was immune from arrest and prosecution for his acts as Head of State in Chile. They said the State Immunity Act 1978 flouted a battery of international legislation on human rights abuses to which Britain is a signatory, and secondly, it would have meant endorsing the arguments of Pinochet's legal team that British law would have protected even Adolf Hitler. Nicholls said,

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