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Today's human rights violations are the causes of tomorrow's conflicts.

Mary Robinson

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Mary Robinson
Age: 80
Born: 1944
Born: May 21
Barrister
Feminist
Former President Of Ireland
Jurist
Politician
University Teacher
Ballina
County Mayo
Máire Bean Mhic Róibín
Mary Bourke
Mary Therese Winifred Robinson
Mary Therese Winifred Bourke
Maire Bean Mhic Roibin
Máire Mhic Róibín
Máire Treasa Úna Mhic Róibín
Her Excellency Mary Robinson
Rights
War
Violations
Today
Conflicts
Human
Violation
Humans
Antiwar
Conflict
Tomorrow
Causes

More quotes by Mary Robinson

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We will not let governments off the hook. We will look to civil society to help us, to pin governments, to what they have committed to here. And we will report on it.
Mary Robinson
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The changing climate is a threat to human rights.
Mary Robinson
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Sharing experience and building public support for the full range of rights is more powerful than legal cases.
Mary Robinson
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Thanks to the European Union, Ireland has a much more open climate of discussion and debate, as you can see in the media. It means that we are a more questioning society, perhaps more honestly prepared to address serious issues and problems, more open to the idea that different viewpoints should be heard and respected.
Mary Robinson
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Ethical globalization is possible if only we can hold governments and business accountable for respecting human rights, not just in the traditional political and legal realms, but in everything - health, education and the other social determinants of health - rights to food, safe water, sanitation and so on.
Mary Robinson
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The question now is how best to help the Iraqi people build a democratic and free Iraqi society that ensures respect for the rights of all Iraqis.
Mary Robinson
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As a citizen of Ireland I have more sovereignty over our government. Because citizens now have more ways of holding the Irish government to account, not just under Irish constitutional law, but under the European system, at Strasbourg and Brussels. This, I believe, is the benefit for individual citizens.
Mary Robinson
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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.
Mary Robinson
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A culture is not an abstract thing. It is a living, evolving process. The aim is to push beyond standard-setting and asserting human rights to make those standards a living reality for people everywhere.
Mary Robinson
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The fifth province is not anywhere here or there, north or south, east or west. It is a place within each of us. It is that place that is open to the other, that swinging door which allows us to venture out and others to venture in.
Mary Robinson
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It is necessary to ensure that the requirement to combat terrorism is not used to clamp down on freedom of expression, legitimate dissent, freedom of association and so on.
Mary Robinson
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I don't like a bipolar or a unipolar world. I like a multipolar world but on many occasions people have been surprised that South Africa has not seemed, internationally as well as internally, to take a decision that affirms the true values of your Constitution and the vision of those who were there at the beginning - Madiba himself and others.
Mary Robinson
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People I admire have two qualities: a kind of simplicity, and generosity of spirit. It seems to me that the more impressive people are in what they have done, the simpler they tend to be in how they talk to you, or in what they say or write.
Mary Robinson
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I was elected by the women of Ireland, who instead of rocking the cradle, rocked the system.
Mary Robinson
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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.
Mary Robinson
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The fight for human rights is about speaking truth to power.
Mary Robinson
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The aim of human rights, if I may borrow a term from engineering, is to move beyond the design and drawing-board phase, to move beyond thinking and talking about the foundations stones - to laying those foundation stones, inch by inch, together.
Mary Robinson
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One of the richest countries in the world - the United States of America - is facing a real ethical dilemma in terms of providing equitable access to health care.
Mary Robinson
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I'm a very wide reader. I read serious books and I read airplane, forgettable books. I never have fewer than four or five books beside my bed at night. I particularly enjoy reading about people who have gone through a personal growth.
Mary Robinson
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An endless war against terrorism can tend to inflate the terrorists, because being at war is attractive to some angry, unemployed, disaffected youth.
Mary Robinson