The report produced by my commission, the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security, in 2012 showed the corrosive impact of money in US politics, for example, which undermines the legitimacy of the democratic system in citizens' eyes. Such perceptions partly explain the rise of a phenomenon like the success of Donald Trump.

Violence against women is perhaps the most shameful human rights violation, and it is perhaps the most pervasive. It knows no boundaries of geography, culture or wealth. As long as it continues, we cannot claim to be making real progress towards equality, development and peace

Education is, quite simply, peace-building by another name. It is the most effective form of defense spending there is.

Today, no walls can separate humanitarian or human rights crises in one part of the world from national security crises in another. What begins with the failure to uphold the dignity of one life all too often ends with a calamity for entire nations.

Perhaps the single most successful international agreement to date has been the Montreal Protocol.

National markets are held together by shared values and confidence in certain minimum standards. But in the new global market, people do not yet have that confidence.

Most people forget that even in Iraq, by the time the air and no-fly zone was established, the air defence system had been removed through the first Gulf war. All of them had been neutralised.