Can the state, which represents the whole of society and has the duty of protecting society, fulfill that duty by lowering itself to the level of the murderer, and treating him as he treated others? The forfeiture of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict it on another, even when backed by legal process.

The death toll from small arms dwarfs that of all other weapons systems — and in most years greatly exceeds the toll of the atomic bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In terms of the carnage they cause, small arms, indeed, could well be described as 'weapons of mass destruction'.

The World is not ours to keep. We hold it in trust for future generations.

As one of my predecessors said, our objective is not to take people to heaven, but to prevent humanity from going to hell.

We often hear a lot about subsidies, because it's often the powerful talking about the poor; the poor don't have enough voice to question the privileges.

... the long-lasting humanitarian impact of these inhuman weapons continues to deny communities the opportunity to rebuild long after the end of the conflicts.

[Refugees] cannot be stopped, but they can and must be managed better, more humanely, protecting migrants' human rights whilst accepting states' rights to control their borders.