Last year saw the largest number of refugees worldwide since the Second World War, and this year the numbers don’t look to be reducing. There’s an aspect to this crisis which isn’t accounted for within the UN Convention on the…
Continue reading Climate Refugees: The Crisis that isn’t Recognised – Harriet Ainscough
More and more countries have begun contemplating whether or not to introduce plain packaging for products containing tobacco. Not only does such a policy fail to produce the outcomes governments intend, but it also fails to respect the intellect and…
Continue reading Patronising People: Why is Plain Packaging Plainly Wrong? – Charlie Kingsbury
For the past few weeks a huge marriage scandal has been dominating discussion in Russia. The President of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, gave his blessing to the marriage of a 57 (according to some sources 46) year old Police…
Continue reading Officials, Polygamous Marriage, and the Rule of Law in Russia – Alena Santalainen
John Stuart Mill believed that until conditions of equality exist, no one can possibly assess the natural differences between women and men. Mill spoke about human rights in general with focus on voting rights for women. Mary Wollstonecraft encouraged women…
The same-sex referendum that took place in Ireland yesterday is very significant. This is not just because 84.16% of the population identifies as Roman Catholic. It’s not because of the matter either: seventeen countries (eleven of which are European) have…
Continue reading Of rights and referendums: Ireland votes – Junior Sikabwe
You can read an introductory post to Krijn’s series on liberal political philosophy here. Thomas Hobbes was an early modern English philosopher. In his treatise Of liberty and Necessity, Hobbes defines individual liberty as follows: “Liberty is the absence of…
As its name implies, one of the fundamental ideas that underpin liberalism is liberty. However, as with ideas underpinning other political philosophies, people don’t always mean the same thing when they use the term. This is not unimportant. Different ways…
Let’s start things off with a cliché: a week is a long time in politics *is sick all over self *. But really it is. I mean about a week ago us British liberals were all waiting around for something…
Continue reading Explaining the #LibDemFightback to our international friends – By Bobby Dean
The cab ride was marked by a sense of excitement and a concerted effort in trying to remember each other’s names. It was Mellaquez’ first time in Cape Town, and her eyes filled with delight as she peered through the…
The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center was an attack on a symbol of freedom and cooperation. Just a few days after the attack, the Security Council on behalf of the United Nations pushed through new terror legislation…
Continue reading The War Against Terror is a Bigger Threat than Terrorism Itself – Eirik Natlandsmyr
