From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
We have enough water on this planet for everyone's needs, but not for everyone's greed. The crisis is fundamentally about distribution, access, and governance - not absolute scarcity.
Disability is an impairment, but an impairment is not necessarily a disability. The interaction of an impairment with the social barriers that surround you may or may not turn that impairment into a disability. For example; I am a wheelchair user, and If I see a building in front of me with three steps, I cannot get into it. If I cannot get into it, it's not because I'm on a wheelchair; it's because the building has 3 steps. If the same building had a ramp, my wheelchair would not be an impairment and I could easily get into the building.
In all institutions from which the cold wind of open criticism is excluded, an innocent corruption begins to grow like a mushroom – for example, in senates and learned societies.
As a prosecutor, I recognize that our involvement typically begins when it's already too late: when prevention, humanity, and common sense have failed. Violence, whether in families, communities, or at an international level, signifies a failure of humanity.
Human rights violations are not just legal failures - they're public health crises. When we deny people their basic dignity, we create conditions that harm entire communities for generations.
It's amazing how little data the world has about women and girls. There are even gender gaps in the data we use to measure gender gaps.
You can take a form of identity that's been historically associated with repression and hierarchy, and make it more egalitarian – that's what we've been trying to do with gender. Let me be clear, I'm not in favour of the abolition of gender, but I do think there's a lot of work we need to do in order to find more equality.
This principle demands careful consideration of protection that must be given to civilians and civilian property, balancing military objectives against foreseeable collateral damage. This balance cannot be made by a formulaic algorithm – there isn't one – but by human judgment.
Unless women have the chance to take up an active role in our economies and fulfil their potential, our ambitions for a fairer and more prosperous world simply won't be realised.
The world would be a different place today if we would find a way to really empower girls and women globally. It is the solution, and I'm definitely not the only person that thinks that.
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.
We like to think of data as being objective, but the answers we get are often shaped by the questions we ask. When those questions are biased, the data is, too.