It remains the task of governments to implement the fundamental human rights standards which should influence all aspects of globalisation, including even trade talks, and to be answerable for this in a democratic way. The structure is international, but the accountability is national and I would like to see that accountability being more penetrating at regional and local level, especially in federal systems.

South Africa is regarded as being an extraordinarily important country - not just for South Africa, but for Southern Africa, for the BRICS, working now in a new way in which power is becoming more shared - thankfully.

Many people think that we have no shared value system in the world today but we actually do.

I want to take human rights out of their box. I want to show the relevance of the universal principles of human rights to the basic needs of health, security, education and equality.

Post-genocide Rwanda has managed to implement a good universal health insurance scheme that covers a large proportion of the population. This came about because of the severity of the country's problems and the resulting high proportion of women in the parliament and among professional caregivers, which had a positive effect on policy.

You can convene a wider cross-section if you have no turf to defend, because then you don't cut across anyone else's agenda and you can achieve a great deal.

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.