2. Human Rights and Global Responses
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Aryeh Neier has set out how, as the legal instruments designed to prevent war crimes against civilians have grown over 150 years, from the first Geneva Convention of 1864, to the ratifications of 1949 and now to the creation of an International Courts, so, at the same time, the scale and frequency of violations against civilians has grown just as much. Are we now witnessing a similar bleak process with respect to fundamental human rights and freedoms? UN proclamations and the deployment of military force to defend and expand democracy seems to coincide with a parallel increase in international surveillance, restrictions on speech and inhuman security measures in the name of counter-terrorism.
There are new threats and dangers, above all from climate change. What are they and how should we best respond to them? The advent of the Obama presidency promises an important change in tone as well as the arrival of intelligent policy in Washington. Is this an opportunity to achieve a credible and democratic framework for civil liberties and human rights around the world?
| Chair: | Tom Porteous (London Director, Human Rights Watch) |
| Speakers: | Timothy Garton Ash (historian and Guardian columnist) |
| Jo Glanville (editor, Index on Censorship) | |
| Mary Kaldor (co-director, Centre for the Study of Global Governance) | |
| Paul Rogers (Professor of Peace Studies, Bradford University) |
