From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
I want a world where people can be true to themselves and to live their lives according to who they truly are.
Upon experiencing my first miscarriage, I was incredulously told I'd need to endure three consecutive miscarriages before further action would be taken. The idea itself was staggering to me. You wouldn't ask someone to undergo multiple heart attacks or even endure recurrent minor injuries like broken fingers before intervening. Yet, the system requires women to face the trauma of three successive miscarriages.
The climate crisis disproportionately affects the poorest countries and communities, small islands, and indigenous peoples—who contribute least to the problem. This crisis also embodies racial injustice, as those most affected are often people of colour. Gender injustice is evident through the distinct social roles and limited opportunities for women, who perform a significant portion of agricultural work, especially in regions like Africa and India, yet face barriers in accessing credit and agricultural training.
Backlash is sadly an intrinsic part of social progress. When oppressed people make their claim for justice, they trigger a response – a fightback by those who want to maintain the status-quo.
I firmly believe that a society cannot heal from the wounds of war without accountability for serious international crimes. How can a society move towards a shared future while fundamental disagreements about the past and about responsibility for past crimes persist?
Behold, the lewd, pornographic embrace of two great American pathologies… Race and guns, both of which have conspired not only to take the life of a teenager, but to make that killing entirely permissible.
Despite romantic notions about laws of war being found in on Cyrus' Cylinder, (circa 539 BC) or in the Bible's Book of Deuteronomy, effective legal frameworks didn't emerge until the latter part of the 19th Century. They began with the American Lieber Code – military law for wartime conduct applied by Abraham Lincoln to the Union side in the American Civil War – and the first Geneva Convention, followed by the Hague Conventions, and now found in the modern iteration of the Geneva Conventions and their protocols.
To be a billionaire in America today is less a matter of merit than it is a matter of being at the right place at the right time, and being a beneficiary of a set of rules designed to benefit billionaires.
I'm a firm believer in the inherent goodness of the world. The notion that refugees aim to usurp others' opportunities is a misconception. Excellence and dedication secure positions, not nationality. If a refugee excels, it's a call for self-improvement, not resentment. My goal is to demonstrate through our actions that coexistence is not only possible but enriching.
I think it's down to what Jeremy Bentham said which is, '…the question is not can they reason? Or can they talk? …But can they suffer?'
A concept that has become prominent in recent discussions addressed to newspaper readers, media viewers, and radio listeners in the past seven weeks is 'proportionality'. This concept, while vital to have in mind in considering the lawfulness or otherwise of use of force in almost all armed conflicts, lacks a precise definition.
The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer, and the market doesn't even things out. It takes massive state intervention through public services, health services, social housing and income redistribution to even begin to equalise or reduce inequality.