Nothing is more important than restoring a high degree of autonomy to educational experiences so that those who grow up in this society and troubled world have the best available tools to grasp the challenges that imperil our national and human future.

As matters now stand, the combination of genocide, as conventionally understood, and crimes against humanity, seems sufficient to cover the criminality of political leaders, and the lethal consequences of totalising ideologies.

There are degrees of incompatibility, and there are more factors relevant to upholding democracy and human rights than the operation of neoliberal markets. Perhaps this point can be initially made by reference to the decline of democracy and the erosion of human rights within the United States since the 9/11 attacks.

This issue of expanding the reach of international criminal law by reliance on the use of Universal Jurisdiction by domestic courts needs to be balanced against the injustice of according impunity to those with strong geopolitical backing. It is notable that several western European countries backtracked on UJ after threats of retaliatory moves by the United States and Israel. There is no doubt that the domain of UJ is a geopolitical battleground.

We should not rule out the possibility that Trump's diplomacy could deescalate Middle East strife and international tensions, give the US a lower global profile and enable a more balanced world order to emerge, doing most of its damage here at home, through moves to implement his vision of nativist nationalism.

It should be appreciated that this whole effort to hold leaders of states criminally responsible is a rather radical challenge to territorial sovereignty and a repudiation of the whole related ethos of 'sovereign immunity'.

I once got a call from a bank, asking me to compute a mortgage, since their computers were down. This was a very depressing moment.