Culture and Ideas
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The Lorax and Legal Standing
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The year before publication of Christopher Stone’s seminal article ‘Should Trees have Standing?’ in the Southern California Law Review, another American environmentalist made an important, if overlooked, contribution to the debate on public interest litigation. “I am the Lorax…I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.” Apart from a recent US Court…
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Why are young men obsessed with discipline?
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My male peers are becoming more concerned with discipline — with their own discipline, and with the discipline with others. They are referring to a kind of rigour they deem necessary for mental and/or physical excellence, a volitional tautness that goes into being a healthy adult. But I have had my suspicions that their concern…
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Are Human Rights Claims Mechanisms an adequate Social Justice tool to Address Inequality?
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Introduction: Equality, as a concept, is not necessarily complex or abstract. It is grounded in the idea that ‘everyone counts as one and none is more than one’.1 Extrapolating from this idea, inequality exists where needs of some are disproportionately emphasised over others. This could be a result of numerous factors.2 It is likely that…
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On the Lives That Matter
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Without a doubt, we live in a more connected and shared existence. Perhaps not spiritually, but definitely in the sense that we have a broader access to the world. From this, we gain perspective to various opinions or experiences, echoing similar voices, or seeking comparatively different views. For some, this is beneficial, for others, it…
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Fact, Power and Covid-19
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‘We’re following the science’ has been the constant chorus of the UK government. Unfettered by tired ideologies, their response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been determined by nothing but the very latest advances in public health and data-driven virus modelling. Or so if they are to be believed. This essay will contest the claim that…
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What Does a Statue Mean? Notes on Rhodes Must Fall
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Edward Colston was obviously an awful man: no one whose actions lead to the deaths of 19,000 people, actions motivated by (at best) a desire for profit, can be called anything except evil. At least, if evil is here understood as being broadly understood, as “deserving of widespread moral condemnation”. The same goes for Cecil…
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Major Transformative Technologies and the Five Dimensions of Security
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Cyberattacks and data theft have received a rating between 3.5 and 4 out of 5 in the 2020 World Economic Forum Global Risks report. Our societies’ ubiquitous reliance on technologies naturally comes with downsides. It is now commonplace to refer to new technologies as transformative forces in the 21st century – with the attendant discussions of opportunities and…
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Clocking off during coronavirus: why capitalism won’t wait any longer
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In normal times, the slightest dip in productivity is enough to bring even the most stoic of billionaires to tears. But when public health measures threatened to suspend the productive process altogether, the floodgates opened. As calls to re-open schools, shops, and workplaces were heeded, it became clear that the cost of billionaire counselling was…
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If pregnancy was a symptom of coronavirus and labor a pandemic, paid maternity leave would be a universal policy #StayAtHome
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The Covid-19 pandemic has fostered Global Health Governance. Implementing maternity leaves should be easier than ever before. As of the 5th of June 2020, the total global death toll due to coronavirus is 396,267[1]. Coronavirus information has engulfed every news channel, every social media account gaining immense coverage. Unsurprisingly, considering these numbers and the fact…
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Can politics ever be free from violence?
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Discussions about violence are perhaps more prominent than ever before, and we are constantly bombarded with depictions of violence in films, the news, books, and a variety of other cultural mediums. We are living in an era which is sometimes described as the bloodiest on record, sometimes as the most peaceful[1]. Lively and fierce debates…