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Climate change is the greatest threat to human rights in the 21st century.

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
Threat
Climate
Century
Greatest
Rights
Change
Human
Humans

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In general, I don't think that economic, social and cultural rights are primarily a matter of going to court. They are most useful today as commitments which can help ensure effective and equitable policy-making at every level.
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Sharing experience and building public support for the full range of rights is more powerful than legal cases.
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Symbols give us our identity, our self image, our way of explaining ourselves to ourselves and to others. Symbols in turn determine the kinds of stories we tell, and the stories we tell determine the kind of history we make and remake.
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I was influenced at an early age by Gandhi, and I have read many biographies of him. I have been greatly influenced in the last twenty years by Mandela. It is amazing that he has managed to keep such a balance, that he came out of prison after such a long time as a rounded, holistic person who could reach difficult accommodations with generosity.
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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.
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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.
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Many people today in the developed countries are so far removed from poverty and suffering and starvation that they lack empathy for the sufferings of others.
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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.
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South Africa is regarded as being an extraordinarily important country - not just for South Africa, but for Southern Africa, for the BRICS, working now in a new way in which power is becoming more shared - thankfully.
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Christian fundamentalists seek to roll back women's right to choose in the United States, and then also insist that money against Aids must not go to organisations that help people obtain their reproductive rights. These are extremely worrying trends.
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Today's human rights violations are the causes of tomorrow's conflicts.
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It's only after their death that people are truly appreciated. It's because they are true to values.
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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.
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Democracy is about constant vigilance. It's not straightforward, there will always be setbacks and you get particular be it religious fundamentalists, Christian fundamentalism - a partly conservative approach and actually trying to put women in a more traditional role. And we have to resist that.
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Freedom from discrimination for women, ensuring that female children can learn to read, these are human needs for half the human race, not western values.
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Finance ministers must realize that the health budget can save them money if it's applied well.
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I'm struck by how very few people outside a rarefied world of true believers understand what you mean when you say human rights - that includes development experts and economists who are very keen to implement the UN Millennium Development Goals. They've told me quite frankly, that they don't know exactly what a human rights approach is.
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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.
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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.
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I have a sense that South Africa is my other country apart from my native country that I particularly love, [that I] want to see succeed, and I did really want my message to be listened to.
Mary Robinson