We must understand the role of human rights as empowering of individuals and communities. By protecting these rights, we can help prevent the many conflicts based on poverty, discrimination and exclusion (social, economic and political) that continue to plague humanity and destroy decades of development efforts. The vicious circle of human rights violations that lead to conflicts-which in turn lead to more violations-must be broken. I believe we can break it only by ensuring respect for all human rights.

If we took away barriers to women's leadership, we would solve the climate change problem a lot faster

An endless war against terrorism can tend to inflate the terrorists, because being at war is attractive to some angry, unemployed, disaffected youth.

Sharing experience and building public support for the full range of rights is more powerful than legal cases.

If you live in a global world and you want to champion liberty in it, then you have you got to sign up to that global world.

One of the richest countries in the world - the United States of America - is facing a real ethical dilemma in terms of providing equitable access to health care.

I'm not interested in scoring points or being over-critical of the US administration. I want to find the entry points to try and get it back on track so that the United States can get out of the present disastrous situation it's in, and back into being a constructive force for human rights in the world.