Martin Luther King Civil Rights Leader and Peace Advocate (Part 1 of 4)
Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his life for the poor of the world, the garbage workers of Memphis and the peasants of Vietnam. The day …
human rights
Hiroshima
An old eucalyptus tree grows in the ruins of Hiroshima Castle. Although only 750 metres from ground zero when the atomic bomb was dropped on …
How old is the idea of abolishing foreignness?
Today it is entirely natural to think that every person in the world is endowed with certain rights, ones that transcend foreignness and apply absolutely …
The borders of virtue and power
Closing borders: to refugees, to undocumented migrants, raises questions of virtue and questions of power. The public debate around borders is so fractured, so superficial, so bedevilled with …
Three reasons for Abandoning Mandatory Detention
A paper delivered at a roundtable on alternatives to detention held in Canberra, June 9 – 10, 2011 By Penelope Mathew Freilich Foundation Professor The …
Do Foreigners Have the Same Human Rights as the Rest of Us?
At the core of human rights is the axiomatic truth that human beings have inherent rights: that all human beings are equal and possessed of …
No One is Illegal
“You who are so-called illegal aliens must know that no human being is ‘illegal’. That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful …
Love Your Mother
Pictures of planet Earth “our home planet” capture our imagination. This one commemorates Earth Day and its message is simple: we need to love the …
Book Review: The Strange Alchemy of Law and Life by Justice Albie Sachs
The victims and perpetrators of human rights abuses whisper from the pages of this short book. They speak to us of their struggle to realize …