>> good evening. it is my distinct pleasure to introduce you to the great hall. i am the president of the inept and it is truly an honor tonight to introduce former president of ireland who i assume those of you have come to know about, mary robinson's book is a revelation. we are fortunate to have heard tonight. a little bit of background about this hall for those who may be new to. craig hall is the place of the famous right makes might speech

from this very podium. that began a long history of social justice movements launch your celebrated in this hall including the susan b. anthony worked in this building, and the first convention here and the first major conference of native american leaders led by red fox was held in this very room in the nineteenth century at a time when people were being slaughtered on the plains. there is quite a history here of events that occurred during some critical and turbulent times in irish emigration to the united states as well. from 1866 when more than of thousand supporters of the athenian brotherhood met here up to the eve of 1916, easter rising this stage was host to

such leaders of the irish independence movement as donovan rosa, michael gavin and michael collins. i was intrigued by some of those and was able to find a new york times article from 1887 when the athenian brotherhood assembled in this hall and the new york times article is entitled marred by discord. apparently one of the speakers named richard cac 40 according to the new york times, quote, the new york times is quoted, quote, after a careful study of irish history and he had come to the conclusion that the best way to right the wrongs of the oppressed country was to plant a bomb in the heart of england and there followed shears and the

yell of dynamite. this speaker then attacked another speaker whose name was received with a tempest of hissing and catcalls and he had to be protected by people who were then escorted out of this all. tonight's talk will be a lot more simple than that to give you a sense of continuity and history is most fitting that we welcome the hon. harry robinson, former president of the republic of ireland and former u.n. high commissioner for human rights. president robinson's entire career has been devoted to the pursuit of fairness in all aspects of society. as an activist lawyer he defended the causes of women who had been marginalized and as a member of the irish senate, progressive legislation including the legalization of

contraception. president robinson was the honorary president, a member of the elders, a group of 11 independent world leaders brought together by nelson mandela to offer their collective influence and experience to support peace building. to help address major causes of human suffering and promote the shared interests of humanity. in 2009 president obama awarded her the presidential medal of freedom, calling her, quote, and advocate for the hungry and the hunted, the forgotten and the ignored. mary robinson has not only shown a light on human suffering but eliminated a better future for our world. this book "everybody matters: my life giving voice" really sets out some of the work of our speaker tonight, and i will

allow her to -- please welcome mary robinson. [applause] >> thank you very much for that warm welcome. very inspiring to be in a hall with so many illustrious speakers particularly on the theme of social justice and wanting the kind of change that will be better for society and nice to be here in the union and i very much appreciate also the sponsorship of ireland, which i'm very familiar with, a place i have many times visited and

enjoyed. it is home for a lot of reasons and i appreciate the fact that you braved the elements and yesterday with such a beautiful day and what happened today that can change so dramatically and so quickly? as i say i feel very at home because i had an early experience of learning about human rights, very early and growing up in the west of ireland, the only girl wedge between four brothers, older than me and two youngsters and me of course i had to be more interest in human rights and equality but using my elbows and generally asserting myself but as i tried to explain in the book because it is good to record, that wasn't the norm. the ireland i was growing up in was and ireland where girls and

women knew their place, their place was in the home or in the nunnery or if they were talented enough they could become writers or artists or musicians. i was very aware that boys had much more options even though my parents very often repeated that i had the same opportunities that my brothers had and they would support me in that. after six years of sacred boarding school in dublin, i realize that the options were not really very exciting and most of my contemporaries at the time were talking about what they would do for a year or two before they married. marriage was the goal, the objective and parents would help with that and it was expected.

i had benefited from various in my background who had done other things. a great and who had been very forceful as the reverend mother in britain and talked-about how she tried to influence education policy in england. i enjoyed talking with her when i was a teenager and even more so my father's older sister, his two sisters became nuns but the older sister who had gone to india with the sacred heart order and got very involving children who were very poor who would not have had an education and all the issues related to that end i felt this was interesting and worth doing so i decided my best option was to offer myself and become a nun. at the age of 17 after i had spoken to the reverend mother in the convent and said i had

decided to become a nun and she looked me quite shrewdly and said maybe you should think about it. go away for a year and if you want to we would be delighted to receive you in a year's time. my parents who were devout catholics were very happy with my choice and honored i was going to be a nun and delighted to have me for another year so they decided nothing was too good for their daughter and they would send me to paris for a year and of course that changes everything and i describe that in some detail in the book. i came under a different influence also when i was very young. i had a grandfather who had retired early to get help from the practice of law and the law he practiced was very much for the peasants against the landlord or the powerful person

and he was pleased to have a young girl, 10, 11, 12, 13, who was interested in what he was talking about. it was unusual. he didn't know how to talk to a child. he spoke to me as if i was an adult and he spoke about law being an instrument of social justice. once it wasn't appropriate anymore to become a nun i decided to study law and when to college in dublin where my two older brothers were studying. both our parents were doctors and decided to study medicine. i chose law and my younger brothers were also coming up to college so all five of us together, we were very lucky to get an apartment, a house in westland road where oscar wilde

was born. the coaches going down westland road would tell their passengers to turn their heads and see the plaque of the house where oscar wilde was born. it was a wild house for reasons i go into a little bit in the book mainly to do with my brothers, not so much to do with me. i was a good student in the front of the class. in that same year in lost pull, somebody i became friendly with without paying much attention to called nicholas robinson and in that first year, in first-class honors and among those three and came out to dinner and it was a little better and he decided he had better things to do so the tended to sit in the back of the class and draw cartoons and i still stating front of the class and fought to achieve good

grades and i also forced myself to they base. i tried to save this very honestly in the book because why i wrote this memoir was to be encouraging, to push yourself a bit and reach your potential. so i pushed myself to the base, to stand up and not go blank with shyness and i got better at it so i decided to go forward for auditor of the dublin university law society and i gather i was the first female student to be elected and by this stage i was interested in law as an instrument of social change and one of the things that bothered me was in ireland at that time, in the mid to late 60s there was a totally equation of sin and crime and i felt this wasn't allowing that private

space for individual morality and didn't take account that there were non catholics in the republics of ireland the christian faith, jewish faith, no faith, whatever, we should be opening up to minorities and respecting their view points. in my inaugural address in 1967, law and morality in ireland i made some modest recommendations. i said we should remove the ban on divorce from the constitution, legalize family planning, we should not criminalize adult consenting behavior between male adults of the same sex and we should not have food fights as a crime. i remembered that the speech caused quite a bit of interest because of the title, block and morality in ireland and was a big examination hall in trinity and i delivered it actually to a slightly larger audience than this believe it or not and there was a moment of silence when i

finished and i said i was worried about -- and then there was more than decent applause but no controversy. the feeling was that is what students do. i was very lucky to get a fellowship to harvard university, that was a wonderful year to be in harvard. class of 1968. when i arrived, i found my united states contemporaries were questioning what they believed was an immoral war, the war in vietnam and escaping the draft. there was a lot of discussion about poverty programs in the south of this country and the civil rights movement and people were bravely joining. martin luther king was assassinated in april of 1968 and just after i graduated,

robert kennedy was also assassinated. this had a huge impact on me. it was a different world and law was being taught in a different way from the catholic method. .. >> i came back to practice and

teach law and my husband to be set at the time, but i did characterize it how to be humble. a question in a parliamentary election why it was those who were traditionally elected to the six university seats in the senate. why was that? why couldn't it be more diverse, i thought. so my friend said, you should do that. i was elected, which meant that i was teaching practice law. i had a program that went back to the inaugural address i had given in 1967 about law and

morality. the first item on the agenda was to legalize family-planning in ireland. with my analytical strength, married women would have some problems. they would have to get a doctor's certificate to get contraception if they had cycle regulation problems. and the condom was not -- it was not available without any sanction, but it was against the criminal law to buy or sell a condom. so this is something that needed to be addressed by a simple bill amending the criminal law in 1935. they supported me and the normal

course is that it would be published in a journal. i mean while knew that i had touched this at the time. i got hate letters, the archbishop required the letter be read out in the diocese of dublin. every church in the diocese of dublin said such a measure would remain in the country. i remember the irish press headline the following day impress upon the country, i was 26 years old and just married. it was tough and very difficult. i remember wobbling and feeling defensive walking down the street in dublin. someone would say and jump out and say you are doing terrible things and you are the devil

incarnate. suddenly i was a hate figure and people were saying how terrible it was. i was very affected by these letters. so he had burned a lot of the correspondence. it is part of the social history of that time. but no one wanted to talk about sexual relations. least of all the legislators. there was a fear and antipathy to doing so. and we persisted, we changed from criminal law to help. and there was a health and family planning bill. gradually the irish government to take responsibility of it about nine years later.

the measure is now not controversial at all. meanwhile, i was enjoying teaching law. i love teaching at college and interacting with students. i was practicing law. because of the opportunity to discuss the united states constitutional law, i very quickly decided that was the area that i wanted to focus on, and there were a lot of issues at the time. i would take them in the irish courts. then there was the possibility that these cases could also be taken beyond the irish courts if you didn't get justice at the supreme court of ireland. ireland had ratified the european convention on human rights and civil liberties and

freedoms. that meant that you could take, having exhausted domestic remedies, or maybe uniquely go to stroudsburg. the other possibility was to take cases. in 1973, there were directives on equal pay and equal opportunity. the case would start in the irish courts and there would be a reference of the legal issues, you got to luxenberg and then get a ruling of the irish courts and look luxembourg. and i enjoy those cases. the one that really stands out, because i was so admiring. it was a case involving a woman named josie. she had an abusive husband beat

her. and she was -- excuse me, he was convicted in the district court and given a fine. he alleged to continue to beat her and she wanted to get a judicial separation. she would have to go into the high court and that was complex as a procedure. she went to various lawyers to see if someone would help very. no lawyer was willing because even if she could, she was very poor and working class. she saw an article in an irish newspaper and it was possible to take a case to stroudsburg to the commission on human rights.

she wrote a long letter which included a lot of irrelevant material. but it had a kernel of truth in it. she was denied access to court to protect her family life. two reviews and articles under the european convention, and some clever lawyers and stroudsburg decided there was an issue to be argued. so they provided legal aid and i was able to argue this case as a barrister. the legal aid came from strasburg. tuxedoed for the commission of human rights. in the case went back a year or two later before the court of human rights. it was heavily argued on the other side by the government of

ireland. because they could see the implications. if the case succeeded, and then fed ireland would have to introduce and pay lawyers to provide legal aid in certain cases. so it was a very vigorous case. eventually because we were supported by the commission, we won on those two articles of the convention and it was something that was denied for access to justice and it wasn't protecting this. the irish newspaper said this wasn't just for me, this was for women who were denied justice. why should we put up with being beaten in our homes and not able to go to court? it was a wonderful telling moment. i was very touched when i got a letter from one of the senior counsel at the time. he was such a leader and a great

friend as well. he wrote me a letter and congratulated me on a landmark case. it was a great thing to get when you are in your early '30s. so i really enjoyed that. i was moving various measures. nick and myself establish the community college to provide guidance to various sectors of irish life. industry, labor, women's issues and etc., to look at the impact of regulations of the european union. we were very happy about that. i have had elections and i had tried it twice. i clearly wasn't a very good

politician. i was able to have that kind of conversation. and i was reelected after i had joined the irish labor practice. after i decided that i wanted to go back to focus on issues relating to northern ireland, and we had entered into an agreement, which certainly was a breakthrough in relationships. but it was not seen as a good thing by the whole community in ireland. i felt that something was opposed by one sector, it didn't change the dynamic and i wanted to express those concerns. so i had resigned and gone back

to being independent from the labour party. and i was reelected as such. in 1989, i had served for 20 years in the senate. it is also now a member in london and these cases were increasingly interesting. they were all about social justice. and we had three young children. so i decided not to go forward again. basically to retire and concentrate on law practice. that i was going to be what i would do for the future. we were happy about that as well. fast forward to the 14th of february in 1990, and i get a surprise phone call from a former labour party attorney general and the friend of john

rogers, who said that he had something that he wanted to discuss with me privately. and i said okay, i'm at home. come and see me. so we came into the dining room and he posed a question unexpectedly. he said would you be prepared to accept the nomination of the labour party to run for president of ireland? there is going to be an election this year, and as you know, the president sometimes is elected by this and the labour party is determined. now, that was a complete surprise. i have to say not a very positive surprise me. because the presidency at the time, the presidents who had served had been rather elderly when they were elected and came

to the presidency. they had the distinction that had not been proactive. so it's served it in ireland and especially they were deemed to be unconstitutional. mainly it was a ceremonial figurehead role and a important role outside ireland, and the president was the first citizen of the country. the political power rested with the prime minister and his cabinet in a parliamentary system. the fact that the labour party had decided to nominate a candidate, which meant that there would be a contest. not that the person nominated would when, because the labour party was the smallest of the three parties and they could nominate. it was known that it was

politically literate. we understand and it was known that the deputy prime minister would be nominated and at that time he had a shoe in. so it really damaged irish bookmakers. giving you a odd of strategic moments. as soon as i was nominated, we didn't even put money on it. [laughter] >> what i was encouraged to do, first of all, when i ring him and told him that john rogers had posted this invitation for me out of the blue, he said that it is valentine's day, come to lunch. and he said more or less, you are the constitutional lawyer. have you ever really looked at both provisions? i have to admit that i kind of knew about them, but i kind of

glossed over. i never took the case that was relevant. so i went back and read and realized that this president could do a huge amount. because people had voted for you to serve to do your best for seven years. to really take this on and be the personification of the country. so this gave me a kind of peace to argue for a much more proactive presidency. it would relate to what people were doing in towns and villages and parishes in ireland. what people were doing in various sectors in the economy, northern ireland, how you reach out and began a peace process.

and i went around the country and made these arguments. more and more, people said that by the time the two men who were nominated, the favorite in the beginning, the favorite was nominated, they said that we should have a more proactive presidency. but an interesting way, they haven't been on the floor for as long as i had. and if you have who have run for office in one way or another, you get to know how to be in tune with those you are speaking to and how to hone your arguments. that is what happened in my case. i was elected in my speech of acceptance on the night of the election, all of that incredible

excitement and emotion, it was a very real signal of a different ireland. that somebody of my track record would be elected to serve as president for seven years. so many people cried. they couldn't believe it. anyway, they cried. in my acceptance speech, i knew that that was one of the things that have helped. when you are in a general election, there are both men and women. there were so many wives who didn't tell the husband and his voted differently. i have proven that recently. i was in boise, idaho, speaking to an audience. at the end of my speech, i saw this woman coming towards me very purposefully. and i held my hand out and she

shook my hand and said, i wanted to shake your hand. i was 19 years old and when i told my father, he nearly killed me. [laughter] it was so, you know -- a captured this. the second thing that i mentioned during the acceptance speech, which i completely underestimated was the power of symbols. i said that i would put a light in the window of the official residence, it is the home of the president. for all of those had to emigrate, we want them to know that there is a light in the window, we want the connection. and i did feel strongly about that because i had known about the irish falling on hard times.

we didn't always care not, including in this country. and i wanted to, i really wanted that to be a symbol that i totally underestimated us. the candle was the ultimate symbol. and when we came to our official sentence, you know, we actually got this specially made with no off switch. and you could see this. and that was the ultimate symbol. the light you could see from the road saying that you are welcome. in canada, argentina, europe, wherever. people often stood at the podium before. they said we know that you have

a light in the window, and that encouraged me. for the first time, it was a shaping with this connection. now, leading up to st. patrick's day weekend, and i wish you all a happy st. patrick's day, there is actually a concerted effort this year to encourage people to come back for a gathering. that gathering builds on the whole idea of the connection of the irish. in my inauguration will address a little bit later, i was trying to figure out what my promise was to the people of ireland and i promised i would try to support locally because i had witnessed so much about. i would support clubs and activities and work that was

being done that was changing. helping to cope with employment and i also wanted to represent ireland at the national level and at the international level to try to be a champion of human rights if the opportunity arose. i remember being very worried about how i was going to do this. but somehow the opportunity to come along. in 1992, i was invited to help cope with this situation in somalia. nobody was prioritizing this. i went to the foreign minister

and it was actually david andrews. this visit marked me in a way that was very difficult to see these long lines of people, seeing dead children in the arms of their parents because they haven't gotten there soon enough. the work that was being done, and the imagery from the fighting that is going on. i did manage to speak with both of the warlords. i tried to say that this is not acceptable. you know, food must do to people so they can survive. then i went to new york to draw attention to the situation. it's like every time i met him,

he would raise this. and it had been very useful for these purposes. somehow it is less difficult in the sense that it became more than what i would be expected to do after the killings. nick and i did go in 1994. it is something that you never want to see if the aftermath of a genocide killing. the children's clothes and shoes and the rwandan government and country trying to cope with the huge prison population. the following year in 1995, there was the 50th anniversary of the united nations here in new york in the building. i kind of knew that this would be a time of great rhetoric made

by politicians from all the way around the world. heads of state swimming and to make the speeches. i went back to bring the reality of that to the united nations so more would be done to prevent this kind of violation of human rights. i remember some harling scenes of universities being destroyed, a prison and some of the prisoners were getting gangrene because there was no room to lie down. it was just such an awful image. the third time that i went, in march of 1997, a few months before i completed my term, was for a women's conference. less than three years after the genocide and killing.

those women had enough spirit and determination -- i think i was one of two women. there were some women academics, community workers, etc., and they came and i think that that that's set for one on a particular course, i remember going back to dublin and there was a press conference. and i use the phrase which is little bit cliché and one white, but i said that i have seen the future of africa, and she works. those of you know that women do the work. but also i had seen it from a very different level of political decision-making and determination. every day was a very fun day and

a very special day. and yet only came close to the end of the seven years, i had a difficult decision of whether i should seek a second term. i think the conventional wisdom is that if i had gone forward for a second term, i would not have been opposed by jan opposed. people were used to me being in the job. therefore it would not be an election. but in my heart, i was saying to myself, but i really do this at the same level for another seven years? and how can i show that the presidency could be more proactive to strengthen the office within the constitution. and isn't it better to say that someone else should come with their own capacity to take that forward. so i decided not to seek a second term. and the next brought their own

skills. and now we have michael higgins who is bringing his strength to the office. the office of the president isn't very good standing. it comes at a difficult time when not all things are popular. it is good to see this role. having decided not to seek a second term, the question is what to do. it was not obvious at all. it was quite lonely for a couple of weeks. then the first high commissioner of human rights resigned suddenly. he went back to his native ecuador to become the foreign minister. and the rumor was he left because the job was too difficult. when i approached the irish government, this was a few months of 1997 and i didn't

finish until september, i said that i would like the irish government to nominate me. i was warned by the government that the office was small and underfunded with lowbrow. this was human rights. i thought, this is the one i would really like to do. the irish government is on a vigorous campaign. and then they decided to appoint and put pressure on it. but the first high commissioner had gone, the office was in disarray. in a way, i allowed myself to be put into that. bat. i agreed to come early in september. the irish people, they really didn't like that. you know, i had been elected for a full seven years and i left earlier. and i do admit that it was a

mistake. what i should have said is that i want to serve out my term because i have trust with the people of ireland. i said to him if i knew then what i know now, the u.n. is always in crisis. [laughter] you know, anyway, when i did take on the position, it was quite a shock to find that there were management issues and very good human rights officers for three month contract. everybody felt that they were underfunded pension, they didn't have a lot of support for what they needed. and there was a reform package of united nations which greatly increased the positioning. it was the only office which was

a member of all four executive committees on peacekeeping and development and communitarian issues and economic and social issues. the small offices based in new york. somehow we had to manage all of that. for the first few months, everything that i look that seemed to be a kind of problem. so my defense was to get up earlier and earlier every morning. to stay later in the office, to start taking sleeping pills. it is a very difficult time. i would have been able to write about it without the fact that i was writing it for my daughter. my daughter was here a few days ago but had to go back with two young children and she couldn't stay any longer. she said i remember, mother, how absolutely upset you were.

you were so exhausted and very stressed about the job. and actually that is a very well-received thing. but somehow i had been seen as someone successful and here the job was so difficult that it undermines my health. my brother said if i wasn't careful, i would be throwing we might help. and hearing my brother's ways, i was like, no way. i've gradually strengthening up more resources and i figured out that probably the best way for me to fill that role is to be for the victims. a lot of my time was spent in the terrible violations of human

rights. i went to chechnya and joined the fighting there. my focus was on those in russian federation uniform. by those who were terribly violating human rights. there was a very good russian ngo. one who is taking on the cause of a minority part of the country. and that is where the violations were taking place in. when i reported to the commissioner, we had the first commission that was passed against the russian federation. it was a good day's work for accountabilities of violations of human rights.

each of the refugees were pouring out of kos at the time. they were addressing their issues and helping them and prosecutor of the tribunal to support the work she was doing. she became one of my successors of high commissioner. i went to china as described in the book. because i was a former president, had greater access to the president of china at the time, kim teal, then if i had been and the minister or an ambassador or whoever, the fact that i had outstanding gave me access. when you have access, use it. but i hate you track record with china. i encouraged the chinese government to fund both of the

covenants, and they ratified economic and social rights during my time as high commissioner. they have workshops they would bring chinese experts, judges looking at education, putting people away with no due process, it is still a problem. the worst transgressions and the tibetan monks and priests, the political dissidents, and i would raise these individual cases and very rarely got any introspection. there were encouraging remarks about what the chinese are doing on one side. then i would be very strong --

by far the strongest voice criticizing china. and i learned, having been there on several different occasions, that the media was completely divided. the western media never picked up that i had also given credit. they focused on high commissioner for violation of human rights. the chinese ministry gave me full coverage. it was very interesting. it is still, in part, it is true. it is so hard to get a balanced view. last year that i served as a high commissioner was during the text of this country in 9/11. that extra year was a very tough year. once the united states no longer fully upheld its commitment, and

made it much more difficult for other countries to understand the standard still apply. ministers in egypt and pakistan say, look at the united states. worst of all, the united states should have upheld its standards. these are things that many were reporting on and i was trying to address. when i finished as high commissioner, i wanted piner and work in a practical way on the part of human rights. western countries don't pay enough attention to certain things. so i came back to new york and have colleagues in aspen and geneva on human rights. we were focused on supporting

economic and social rights in african countries and we worked on health issues in some countries. security issues, decent work issues, business corporate responsibility, and it took me to a lot of african countries over a two-year period of time, up to the end of 2010. about five of the eight years i realized that something had happened all over africa. things that were not being taken account of. people would begin a sentence by saying oh, the pain is so much worse. but we don't have predictable seasons anymore. i was growing up, my friend would say we were poor. but we had food. now we have long times of drought and then flash flooding.

it has destroyed the schools. this is why a group of women was formed to try to cope with that. a friend used to say to me, tonight we had to predictable rainy season but came within a week of when they should come. but not anymore. how do i manage my economy in a situation? that is the situation. not just africa, but southeast asia, and i saw the devastating impact of the flooding from a cyclone -- hundreds of miles of field. tainted ground crops would not go on. and so you have to have new ways of growing and it is waterlogged

and very dry conditions. it puts people in their food security. you undermine people, it has a huge gender dimension. the rules of women and men are different. women still have to get the firewood. that is a pattern that is so impactful now. it has been going on for years. we haven't heard as much about it because a lot of people didn't know that this was caused by carbon emissions that were causing the climate shocks in this country and elsewhere. so they didn't know it. and they would talk about when he went there. and i realized this was the worst human rights problem so then i realized that this is not

only a big human rights problem, but also about the future of the world. i established a foundation in ireland for climate justice. it starts with the injustice the climate is hurting those responsible because they live in a vulnerable part of the world at the moment. it is beginning to affect those everywhere. there is a sort of disconnect between who is responsible and who is suffering. those suffering of those who don't drive calls or use fossil fuels. that is one kind of thing. the other is a more difficult thing, but it's going to be quite hard for us to get leadership on. that will be intergenerational justice. we have to think now but the fact that we have short periods of time in which to take measures to curtail his carbon emissions and adapt on low-carb

and clean energy. already we have warmed the world where we are beginning to see climate. we are heading for a 4 degrees world. and then it describes what it's like. and it's a terrible. it is everyone who loses their rights. it is very interesting that there is so much money. paying for bad science, confusing people on the science, we have forgotten the people who are already suffering, the shocks will be huge for the future. i think we should hopefully have a bit of question and answer. we finish with how i capture intergenerational justice.

in our first child was born. i had a kind of physical reaction. i know that as part of his life and now he is being joined by three other grandchildren. so these were grandchildren, they will be in their 40s in 2050. that is a the key here when we talk about climate. we have 7 billion, which is the fastest growth in population ever known. it will be a world where we definitely have very severe weather shocks, big scares.

i sometimes wonder what they will say about us. what will they say about the decisions that we take or don't think now? where it is such an important year. governments said they we commit to a climate agreement by 2015 to come into effect by 2020. but they are not actually very open about this. unless we create pressure, it might not happen. similarly we have the amendment being reviewed. many countries have not reached their goals. they are facing sustainable development goals. so we have a time when we should see the most extraordinary leadership. we should see leadership about how we have to change our ways. how we have to meet this issue.

well, i think that president obama, he did gives signals about climate change. climate change is the biggest security issue. i hope this filters down pretty fast. because i am worried about the fact that we need leadership on this issue. it is a human rights issue, a development issue, and it is aa development issue, and it is a plan of justice issue. thank you so much. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause]

[applause] [applause] >> okay, here are the microphones. who's going to start? this is the interesting part for me hear your views and also your questions. i would love it if people would say who they are. thank you. >> yes? >> think you. i am filipino-american, so you

probably know my question. you're grief for being here. you are the only higher-level officer to speak in 2009 about the u.n. -- most of the u.n. officers had very small talk about problems. i especially came here to say thank you for your position on this. also interlacing human rights to this issue in your statements, pressuring the government of sri lanka. my question is when you have a real conflict, such as the one in sri lanka. how do you deal with it when the states that are being protected

-- [inaudible] and no one is going to take the role of that people. >> that's interesting. >> some ideas to look into the future at some point. >> i thank you for the question. it is true and recently the elders -- think many of you may know that there is a group of elders that nelson nelson mandela brought together. archbishop to get-together. i am one of the younger elders. we have tried to address certain issues. the situation you described in and schilling felt was coming before the human rights council.

he can be difficult for governments of the human rights council to pass a resolution criticizing a country. and they have the ability to present themselves for being criticized. we felt it was important to remind them of the scale of the violations and the lack of real accountability and addressing that issue. so we were quite active and the human writes council gave sri lanka this, but mainly it was a resolution that they were told to be accountable for. this year it has come up again. we felt very strongly that not enough progress is being made on this issue. it is important for a body like the human rights council to be consistent. not to say, oh, that was a long time ago and things have moved on. but actually hopefully that will

be the case. and governments playing into your sovereignty is important. the role of the united nations is that if it is all that is being acknowledged, you have to say, sovereignty. we have gone way beyond this. it is right for the international community to concern itself, we have tried to concern ourselves. in the book i describe some of my visits with the elders, to north korea, for example, and president jimmy carter that had been there. the world health organization doctor was shocked to find out the conditions of the hospitals. there was no running water for visitors. it is kind of shocking to see a

country with no civil society. but in the difficulties of north korea upping the temperature, we still need dialogue. trying to open up space to discover nuclear issues, human rights issues, food security issues. the food issued was a very big one and we also went to the sierra leone and other mountains. we had a major program that was continuing of addressing an issue, which we began by thinking of as how to address the continuing challenges for girls and also for boys and have the ability to do better. it can be the distortion of

religion update. it causes a tradition that causes women to be military's, much as we taught them at school and so forth. so there is a very strong statement made by the elders about three years ago, saying that basically faith leaders should be girls and women. that should be part of their faith. but most of them are men. [applause] >> but then they said they were finally going to do practically. that is also to the early child marriage issues. marriage is usually not a purely private thing. therefore, i have to say that i was aware of the extent of it in certain countries. but by and large, we really underestimated it. the archbishop said that he quickly under messman --

underestimated. a lot of times they offer it up. we were there it specifically, emotionally. we went to ethiopia where the law was signed and no one should marry under the age of 18. then the elders came and the average age of marriage was 12 years old. we took into villages that were addressing us. especially if the holy village says go and stay in school. because that is actually good for the girls, the economy of the village, including the mortality and etc. that would be a way of having it

work. then they then a few months later, so that i could learned so much. it is interesting. the same average age of marriage, 12 years old. and then we went to a school where there was a project for boys and girls to sort of not to except term marriage. we talk to girls in the school about the way in which they were negotiating with their pants to stay a year longer in school. when a girl would learn that there are rumors, she would come to her friends and say, let us stay another year. she's only 14 years old. let us stay until she is 15. when she saw this being talked

about and how you try to change the attitude -- but the most important thing which we were very clear on, there were a couple people who said that that is the culture of the area. he said, do not use that word. human rights are not western writes with a different culture. and human rights are rights for everyone. it is a harmful and traditional package. it is a traditional practice. it denies children and all of their human rights, the right to be chosen, not to marry before they are ready, the right to education and almost all of them.

by making that distinction, you don't always make a change. but you can persuade people to work from within. we want to create a global partnership on child marriage, which is called girls not wives. such a lovely title. many organizations that work in different countries have been strengthened and reserved to go to a partnership. the number of foundations have been very generated. it has been a way to issue this, which is kind of hit in the scale of this. nobody really wanted to take it on because it is involved in some way as the power of the local states. whatever is white. i feel like i am giving a lecture and i never intended to do that. so why don't we have one more

student. >> okay. the boys are much much older. actually sometimes you have a 40-year-old man and a 15-year-old or even an 80-year-old and a 12-year-old in all of those. just to give you a sense of all that, i did speak to one girl in ethiopia, because we were allowed to speak more detailed. she told me she was 16 and had been married for a year. her husband was probably about 30. he wouldn't say a word, she was on the spoke. i asked her because i wanted to be kind, i said to me that your wedding day, and she looked at me but the saddest eyes and said i had to drop out of school. she was a 15 year old playing with her friends, and then her parents said tomorrow you will be married. we will pay the dowry, and that was it. the men are generally older and

the boys don't worry quite as young. >> yes? >> [inaudible question] >> you are a hero to them and you are a hero to me. thank you. my question is that you mentioned early on as in your book, you mention the ceremonial aspects. >> i don't want to denigrate it. >> okay, yeah. today it is much different than stealing others. so how does the office of president today be so much more important to coexist with france or other countries? >> i think the current systems go very well. i think when there are deep issues and moral issues like the

report on this laundry, it is fair to say that the government didn't match this feeling. they needed more. and there was a very full sum and eloquent apology going on. i think it is a healthy tension. a good thing. but the office can kind of try and send a very oblique signal from time to time. to do it very carefully. because it shouldn't get involved in political things. the most difficult thing that i did is i went into the public so fast, knowing that i would be

shaking the hands of him, which no one was doing at the time. it was so important to bring a community in the public eyes. isolation because they didn't want to be part of britain and because they were paying attention because of violence. [applause] >> i never regretted it. >> thank you for your work. my name is maria. i am here in new york and appreciate your time. ..

people to actually understand it more. i think the process that i've been describing about 2015 because there's a commitment to a climate agreement which has to keep the world below 2 degrees of warming above the pre-industrial standards and that has been agreed but we are not on course. it is catastrophic. the united states says this is a great security issue and also with following the real conference last year from

replacing in some ways in the developing countries and the national support from the developed countries with sustainable development goals which would be for all countries we may be keeping the millennium for the countries that need to reach us via to operate in a sustainable world telling us what that means we get to stay within the parameters it's been to change the behavior and we know a little bit about that was a wonderful woman that won the nobel peace prize for her work planting trees and native kenya making peace and environment and she was a with a great smile long before people were talking about it enough this isn't just the government or the united nations there is one thing we

can all do which is reuse and recycle. we continue to think about it and it may be hard to get leadership on this because it is sent -- it is intergenerational. >> you are an inspiration to us all. i work for a scientific journal and i'm fortunate to work with scientists to do research on a daily basis here in the u.s. as well as in europe but i've become more interested recently in developing research capacity to build a research capacity in the developing countries not only for diagnostic treatment and it's a basic research for public health research and developing countries and i was wondering if you've seen an evolution in that area and what you think of the international

attitude towards this building of capacity for these people to do research in their own country. >> i very much agree with you and a lot of countries feel there is support as you have expressed and there is a network championing that part of the network, and i know i've met members of the network a few times even in dublin trying to build up research capacity like other capacities to build up just this education capacity but also the value and indigenous knowledge and to build on that including in the climate context because that may be very why is in ways that we need to understand better so why do very much agree with you.

i'm here at the cooper union thinking about the extraordinary range of political understanding i wanted to be willing to just speak to the entanglement about the syrian question about these extraordinary points of indigenous experience. on a daily basis what is happening in syria one of our fellows is charged with a terrible responsibility she felt the arab league on syria and his heart is broken. the rwanda and shattered beyond their homes and a million people have now left syria and others are internally displaced in syria it is a government that's

allowing that to happen and is part of that and is also the failure of the security council of the united nations and it's a moment to sort of say. it's a failure of the government in the security council to come together and the governments in particular in the country including russia which has refused to accept the revolutions because it doesn't like the way they are framed and china. is it something about the way they are framed and whether they are an early emphasis on the regime change. he's doing more terrible things but is there a better way, i don't know if that is the failure of the political level and it is devastating.

it is a problem that we haven't learned how to ensure that at the very least we don't allow people when the 21st century and, you know, i hope that there will be some kind of agreement. i hope we move a little bit closer to get but the damage done to the people of syria and many of their neighbors overwhelmed by refugees and so is lebanon. it is a very volatile region any way and this is just terrible what's happening but i don't have any answer other than we know what isn't working and that is the united nations which should be giving leadership on this and having the world binders in those countries i don't even mean just russia and china, i think maybe look at the whole thing and say why could you not agree, how hard did you

really try to do this? it's such a terrible travesty and that is happening in the the people of syria are allowed to breathe again because they can't breathe at the moment. thank you for the question. it's a very human rights issue and a difficult one. thank you. [applause]

thwack tune

11 in washington, d.c. we are with a former lieutenant governor of new york who's just put out a book called beating obamacare the handbook for surviving the new health care law and she is holding what appears to be the health care law in her hand. >> all 2,572 pages.

i read this so you don't have to. beating obamacare is a walk through was going to happen the next 18 months. it's not a political book. it's a diet and it's going to help you avoid the land mine of the unintended consequences and the body blows over the next 18 months. >> what are the first things to take effect? >> some of the early provisions have already taken effect. what's happening now is the people that get their coverage through their jobs, and most americans to come are getting clobbered. they are being called in and told i'm sorry we are dropping your coverage or in some cases we are pushing you down to part-time status because the law says that employers with more full-time workers have to offer coverage and not just any coverage. it has to be this one-size-fits-all essential benefits package that costs about twice as much as what many of her. one of the biggest things that is happening this year is people are losing their on-the-job coverage or their full-time job

status. >> this book was published by regnery. it's not a political book? >> my focus has always been on health care. my day job is that i prevent hospital infections comes of this is a book that says things like if you are a baby boomer in your fifties and early 60's, line of your doctors now, cardiologists, even if your healthy because if you wait until you're 65 and go on medicare, you're not going to be about to find a doctor willing to take you on as a new patient. >> over 2500 pages in the law to meet you looked at every page. were there surprises or things like? >> one of the biggest surprises is section 3000, which awards bonus points to the hospitals to spend the least per senior. i understand medicare need to save money, but spending the least per senior? i wouldn't take my beloved dog to the vet for the least per animal so why would i take my mother to the hospital that

spends the least per senior? we have a lot of data to show the lowest spending hospitals have higher mortality rates from things like heart attacks and ammonia. so you don't want to choose the hospital. >> what are the three things people should know about the law? >> to be careful about medical privacy. we can confide things to our doctors and trust that will stay there, but now your medical information will be in an electronic database and the goal is a national database coming and people on all sides of the political spectrum from the far left to the far right are very concerned that you are losing your medical privacy. so talk to your doctor. that's number one. number two, be aware that if you have a heart condition, for example, and you usually see a specialist, don't be bamboozle about all of the talks that you don't need to see one any more. there are a lot of provisions that make it harder to see specialists if you have

something like that, keep seeing a specialist. and number three, if you get to the health insurance exchange, don't be bamboozled by the bronze, silver and gold and platinum prices. it's the same essential benefits package so go for the cheaper ones because unless you are very six, the platinum plan is going to rip you off. >> she has looked at 2,500 pages of the affordable care act and she's put it in her book beating obamacare your handbook for surviving the new health care law. >> so nice to talk to you. thank you for talking about the book.