When I told my son that I had to give a talk about my work to non-mathematicians, he warned me that regular people don't think like mathematicians.

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.

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.

Looking more deeply at the emergence of ISIS or the chaos that exists in Syria, Yemen and Libya would clearly raise crucial doubts about reliance on military intervention and drone warfare as adequate counterterrorist responses and would call attention to the detrimental effects of US "special relationships" with Israel and Saudi Arabia.

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

Both Israel and the United States have mounted attacks on 'lawfare', that is, counter-hegemonic uses of international law to question policies associated with the occupation of Palestine and criminal tactics of warfare.

When I told my son that I had to give a talk about my work to non-mathematicians, he warned me that regular people don't think like mathematicians.