From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Probably most importantly was the ability of Brazil to deal with a problem we inherited from colonial times- inequality.
We live in the age of the refugee, the age of the exile.
We don't currently have the accountability mechanisms in our digital life that we do in our physical life.
When you contrast that with human rights defenders, they are willing to self-sacrifice, to give everything to defend the community… not just their community, but everyone's rights. Why can't politicians be like that?
The people who will be disproportionately harmed by climate change are those who are (in general) less advantaged economically and socially. Justice means equality of opportunity for all human beings, and that equality of opportunity is quickly reduced if you're in Bangladesh and your home is flooded or if you're in Nigeria and your crops fail because the rains have changed.
We cannot focus only on the material aspects of poverty- we must address the poverty of spirit that's present in every one of our broken institutions: health systems, economic systems, criminal justice systems, and food systems.
There were people transferred to Guantánamo who were sold for bounties, transferred there because of the watch they wore, where they slept or even just because they were Arabic men in Afghanistan. They were rounded up, brought to Guantánamo and many of them have remained there over 11 years.
It was the brainchild of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfwitz. They picked Guantánamo as they believed it was beyond the reach of all law. Obviously United States law, but also international law and beyond that the Geneva Conventions. It was picked purposely to be a legal black hole where the United States could bring people for interrogation purposes.
[the impact of the internet on liberty and free speech has been] very positive indeed – not so much two steps forward and one step back, as ten steps forward for every step back. By breaking the oligopoly of the established press and letting everyone be a publisher, it has made information much harder for the powerful to control.
People in power live in fear of their power being taken away, and they fight like bears in a cage that are being backed into a corner. I had no idea how hard those in power would fight me, and it's an extraordinarily difficult thing to be on the receiving end of.
I need to tell my story until there are no more stories like mine. More than 97% of my friends, with whom I shared this journey, died. My mission was to be voice for all those who died on my journey, and who kept on dying.
Child labour is one of the worst violations of human rights, it's an affirmation that we don't respect the freedom and dignity of children in our society.