The capitalist priority is efficiency of capital and profitability, which is generally inconsistent with protecting the vulnerabilities of people and nature.

The idea of self-determination was gradually given credibility by international law, and it lent strong emancipatory support to movements of liberation struggling against a West-centric world order. Latin American countries used international law creatively, both to limit the protection of foreign investment by establishing the primacy of national sovereignty in relation to natural resources, and by building support for the norm on non-intervention in internal affairs.

We live in a state-centric world faced with global-scale problems that cannot be met by the actions of single states, no matter how powerful, if assessed from the perspective of military capabilities.

The central task of our time is to evolve a new system of world order based on principles of peace and justice.

I think if there is to be a crime of 'political genocide' it needs to be formulated with great care and precision to avoid unpopular views from being criminalised.

The deliberate weakening of the labour movement by the machinations of market fundamentalists, gaining momentum during the periods when Margaret Thatcher led the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan governed in the United States, contributed to the decline of human rights.

On the cautionary side, Universal Jurisdiction could be used to achieve some kind of ideologically motivated criminalisation of 'the other' that would discredit and derail a constructive effort to develop a credible meta-law that governs the behaviour of leaders of sovereign states.