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Climate action and global security

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently warned: “Present trends are racing our planet down a dead-end three-degree temperature rise”. He is right. Unless we act decisively – beginning at the…

Law and the refugee

Pakistan has been home to nearly 3.8 million Afghans since Pakistan first started admitting Afghan refugees after the beginning of the Soviet-Afghan war in 1979. The most recent influx of…

Rejecting the law of the jungle

The humanitarian catastrophe that is unfolding in Gaza with a strange sense of impunity lends credence to the belief of those who assert that justice means protecting the interests of…

Pakistan, Palestine and the World Court

Pakistan has an important opportunity to support Palestinian rights at the World Court and in doing so to advance key principles of international law that protect human rights globally. In…

And then there is delusion

It is mind-boggling to see how deeply infatuated the state and its institutions are with the task of rendering Imran Khan and PTI irrelevant. The longer it takes them to…

Climate change, debt, and inflation

“If you’ve been feeling confused and as though everything is impacting on you all at the same time, this is not a personal, private experience,” says historian Adam Tooze. “This…

End of humanity?

With the gradual and inevitable integration of artificial intelligence, human civilization is undergoing unprecedented changes. The question of whether we are witnessing the final phase of genuine humanity has become…

Debt, inequality and austerity

In most western countries, inequality is rising, and social mobility has stalled. Our citizens are losing purchasing power. They are struggling to find a decent job, to buy a proper…

An infernal island

The Guantanamo Bay detention centre remains a sordid emblem of torture, indefinite incarceration and gross human right violations. The Presidential Military Order that enabled it was “to detain and try…

Punishment and law

Law and punishment are very different concepts and should not be unduly amalgamated. The function of law is the codification of norms, definition of rights and obligations, creation of mechanisms…