To be a hegemon is inherently ambiguous, usually implying some mixture of dominance and legitimacy, that is, being seen as contributing global leadership in a generally benevolent manner.

Doing something, however pathetic, is psychologically better than doing nothing. In the current political environment - that is, with no more Cold War tensions - the tendency is to counteract the feelings of fear and vulnerability with a variety of military, paramilitary and police measures, despite the reality that this kind of excessive reliance on force in many ways intensifies the very problem it is purporting to solve.

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.

Already there exists a growing international concern that Israel has become "an apartheid state" pursuing policies manifesting a "settler colonial" mentality. Such perceptions pose a challenge to postcolonial international society that will not be indefinitely ignored, especially if Palestinians achieve greater unity and tactical focus.

International law in its counter-hegemonic uses is very important in any domain where issues of legitimacy are significant, but is rarely able to have a corresponding behavioural impact.

As such the meaning of hegemony is subject to varying interpretations depending on how the historical role of the United States is interpreted.