Published on
26 September 2010
Food and Fluids: Human Law, Human Rights and Human Interests 4.1 Introduction Academic discussion about nutrition and hydration tends to concentrate on conceptual matters intrinsic to the ethics of removing food and fluids in individual cases. It is, for example, undoubtedly important to distinguish between vitalistic and utilitarian excesses in understanding the rights and wrongs […]
Published on
24 September 2008
Why does religious freedom matter? We (or at least those of us brought up in this country) have of course all grown up in a society in which religious freedom has long been taken for granted. It is something that has been achieved by means of long struggles over the centuries. Whenever we want to […]
Published on
14 May 2008
It is sometimes said that the role of the Attorney General is where law and politics meet. Law and politics met also in Sir Thomas More – along with something else of course, that is, faith. Although I share his faith, the precedent is not an altogether comfortable one. Thomas More held the office of […]
Published on
9 May 2007
Lecture-cum-booklaunch of the English version of the volume When Might Becomes Human Right: Essays on Democracy and the Crisis of Rationality (Gracewing; Leomister, 2007) Europe has become the major exponent of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law all over the world. This modern ‘trinity’ of values has become the universal standard for good government and […]
Published on
5 December 2006
Thank you very much for inviting me to address this seminar of the Thomas More Institute. Thomas More is, among many other things, the Patron of my law school in Chile which makes me especially pleased to accept your invitation. I shall describe the problem we have with reasoning in terms of ‘human rights’ and in […]
Published on
11 January 2006
When I applied for the post of Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights I was asked a question right at the start of my interview by a distinguished Oxford professor who was acting as external adviser. Given that I was an extreme opponent of Human Rights law, why I had I thought I […]
Published on
7 December 2005
It is my great pleasure and honour to be invited, by the Thomas More Institute, to share with you our experience in rebuilding justice and reconciliation after the genocide of 1994 in Rwanda. Rwanda’s history was characterized by a highly centralised and autocratic system of government that institutionalised ethnic differences. This culminated in the 1994 […]
Published on
9 November 2005
May I say that I am pleased to see here a number of our colleagues from China. I have been visiting China since the year 2000 when I went as a member of the Foreign Secretary’s Death Penalty Panel. I have noticed some remarkable changes in attitudes and in openness of discussion on the subject […]