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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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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
Society
Iraqis
Free
Iraqi
Helping
Democratic
Best
Build
People
Respect
Question
Rights
Help
Ensures

More quotes by 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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Membership in the European Community, now the European Union, has helped Ireland to take its place as a European country with all the member states, including Britain. It has therefore helped the maturing of a good bilateral relationship with Britain, lifting part of the burden of history.
Mary Robinson
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There are numerous issues that governments used to deal with that they now no longer deal with to the same extent: Prisons have been privatized in a number of countries education and health are becoming privatized. Governments don't have the capacity to deliver - or not in isolation.
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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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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A lot of young people are very cynical about the political framework because they see the countries that preach democracy and human rights being countries largely responsible for the problems in their region.
Mary Robinson
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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.
Mary Robinson
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We must encourage energy conservation and sustainable development. Young people are the ones who are most environmentally conscious in Ireland, so that to some extent they are educating their parents. They are tackling issues of waste disposal and so on. The schools help, because they put a lot of stress on environmental awareness.
Mary Robinson
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The fight for human rights is about speaking truth to power.
Mary Robinson
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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.
Mary Robinson
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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.
Mary Robinson
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When I am asked, What, in your view, is the worst human rights problem in the world today? I reply: Absolute poverty. This is not the answer most journalists expect. It is neither sexy nor legalistic. But it is true.
Mary Robinson
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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
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It's only after their death that people are truly appreciated. It's because they are true to values.
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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When we see companies who are in complicit relationships with China, for example, making huge profits by providing China with the very software that enables the state to censor its own people, that is not acceptable. We need to engage with such companies to make their responsibilities clear.
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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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.
Mary Robinson
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The UN may not be very effective but I am a fan of the idea of the United Nations. I have been there, I know the problems. To parody Winston Churchill: It is the worst system, except we don't have any other.
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