[music] I'm Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

I'm delighted to welcome our guest today, David Kinley.

He's chair of human rights studies at the University of Sydney.

David, thank you so much for being with me today.

My pleasure.

I want to hear what the Irish example can teach us.

Specifically with respect to what's going on in Ukraine and Russia, also in the Middle East.

We were talking about an accidental way in which, human rights were restored in that region.

It's some research that you've been working on now.

What can the detente, the peace, the, restoration of rights in Ireland, teach us at this moment about how we can try to secure the blessings of liberty for people who have been gravely suffering in those two regions?

There are all sorts of reasons why we all end up doing what we are doing, both professional and personal.

And for me, being born and brought up in Belfast during the worst time of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, was formative.

How could it not be?

But certainly it made me understand or appreciate the power of words and the passion that can be behind those words.

It also made you appreciate history.

They often say about the Irish that Ireland's history was written on tombstones, and by God, the Irish do like looking at their tombstones to remember what they're fighting for.

There's been a lot of death and carnage, from Cromwell all the way through to the Great Famine, and then through to the troubles themselves in the 90s.

More about, 30 years from 60 to the 90s.

But it also actually taught me how laughter, and humor is important as well.

The Irish are never, short of trying to work out what can be seen as amusing about the darkest of circumstances, and I say that not lightly, because I think one of the most extraordinary things for me in my lifetime has been that, being brought up in the middle of the troubles, seeing the extraordinary, weird things that I got used to as a teenager, frisked every time you went into any, this is well before 9/11.

Frisked before you went into any shop or institution of any kind.

The fact that, police for the West, any how, went around in armored vehicles that had metal skirts at their bottom to stop petrol bombs being thrown underneath, and they had a large metal spike sitting above, the open topped Land Rover at head height, in order to snap cheese wire spread across the roads, invisible therefore, at head height.

And so that you just took that, you just accepted that those sorts of stuff, that sort of stuff was, was happening.

And it was because of implacably opposed foes notionally Protestant and Catholic, but really much more constitutional.

Those who wanted to stay with the United Kingdom, those who wanted to be part of Ireland, which was half of which is the Republic of Ireland, half in the United Kingdom.

But to see them and the leaders of those two groups, particularly the extremes, come together in 1998, under the Good Friday Agreement, seem still quite extraordinary to me.

And I think a lot of it has got to do with the accident of history and of personalities.

Some people say it was down to one of the individuals, Ian Paisley, being sick, losing a lot of weight, having an epiphany and thinking, well, what am I going to do?

I should bring things together.

Others, it was doing the work in the shadows, creating bridges that were never to be seen, would never be seen during the time, and indeed, not even for a long time after the rapproche mode was achieved.

And I think that that is occurring and does occur all the time and in international relations and in diplomacy and indeed in domestic politics as well.

Jonathan Powell, who was Tony Blair's, chief of staff at the time.

And I talk about this in the book, has written about talking to terrorists, meaning his experiences during the time in Northern Ireland, but now he's made it a business, actually, in which he does this all over the world.

But he says that there's always those back channels that are existing.

And he means everywhere at the moment, including Russia and Ukraine at the moment, including Palestine and Israel.

They're there.

We'll never know about them or if we will, it'll be a long time down the track, but they are the way in which to bring the extremes together.

Ironically, looking at the middle is just not enough because you will always have the extremes who will just not accept the middles.

agreements.

However, they cannot forge that.

It's getting the two extremes together on how you do that is I mean, if we could find that and bottle it, we'd all be very rich.

But that is the challenge.

You've got to find a way in which to bring them together.

And it may be that it is based on personalities.

It may be that it's based on accident.

But indeed, a lot of history is like that.

What could be most useful right now in securing any kind of temporary relief, if not a permanent peace in those regions?

Do you think about them?

Ive had many guests on The Open Mind who talk about, well, let's separate these two situations.

I understand their unique nuances and violations of particular people, but you just talked about it in a universal language that I don't see the difference.

And your point about, implacable personalities when you think of Putin and Zelensky and Netanyahu and Hamas, is there, a vehicle for negotiation that would be your ideal tool at this juncture?

Or a starting point?

I think the starting points are already there.

I'm quite certain that they have.

There are communications open that we don't know about it.

How successful they are will depend, of course, on how secure the two sides feel that are involved in this, whether it's their emissaries or whether it's themselves.

Most likely at the moment, they're emissaries.

And the security of how they feel, what stance they can adopt privately or publicly is often determined by the polity in which they are standing that they come from.

And so, for instance, I think I was saying the other day, that in Northern Ireland, they estimated there was never more than 400 active IRA soldiers, its a small population.

But it wasn't many.

But the reason why it kept going for so long and why the soldiers, the activists on the other side who were armed as well, why it kept going is because they had a large body of sympathizers who would simply turn a blind eye, or open the door and then lock it, or open the door and say, no, I haven't seen anyone here.

So it's that sort of bedrock of sympathy.

Once you get that sympathy to change, however, infinitesimal it may be.

How do you define that?

But that's the point at which I think you can get bridges being built in a more solid way.

And when and how that comes is so hard to define.

It can take 30 years.

And of course, with Palestine and Israel, it's taken 60 and it may take another 60.

And no doubt one would say the same about Russia and its imperialistic overtones at the moment.

But that, I think, is the line, the light on the hill that you're looking for.

In a climate of mutually assured destruction and, the recognition that Putin has not to date, deployed nuclear weapons, to our knowledge, there might have been some result of bombing of power plants, but it just, to me reflects the futility of it.

I mean, the futility of war in these particular conflicts.

I think they're actually so much alike and that you're staring at parts of the world that were living with rights not enshrined in beautiful constitutions, necessarily, with challenges and conflicts.

You see the photos before and after of Gaza, you see the photos before and after of Ukraine, and it's unforgivable.

That the world at large has allowed it in.

This gets back to the absence of a United Nations or a sufficiently empowered, if you want to call it vehicle or body, to negotiate and adjudicate human rights abuses in our era.

I was asking you the other day, too, about this question as it relates to The Hague and where the jurisdiction is, where the trust is in international communities.

I don't want to state as an empirical fact or a thesis that the United Nations is viewed with suspicion by people around the world, not just the foes battling in war, but the majority of people in the world.

But I fear that it is viewed with suspicion by the majority of laypeople, not just electeds.

I'm not so sure about that.

I think my students will be interested in this, but I tend to be so cynical and yet I'm not cynical on this.

I think...

I think a lot of people may see the UN as not being as effectual as it should be, but to think that it is somehow, an inappropriate, useless organization I think is going too far for me.

I think that that is something that we should be treasuring even if it doesn't work very well, even if it has all the problems of its historical origins and the reasons why the Security Council can't act the way it is, is because of the five permanent members and we all know that.

But, listening to the question and reflecting on it and I daresay many people will, if not agree, they will come to something similar, conclusion somewhat similar.

And that is that it is the personalities of, over egotistical stuffed up, entitled men, nearly always who are at the head of organizations or countries who believe that they can impose their will, their freedom at the expense of everyone else's.

And once more, seek to persuade those who might otherwise unseat them that they're doing it for them, which is, in fact, I think, exactly what Putin would say at the moment.

I think it's exactly what Netanyahu was saying.

I think it's exactly what Trump is saying.

And they're not.

But theres a sort of collective dissonance in which we don't see that, or at least not enough people do, and they get away with it, and they continue to do it until we reach a destructive point in which there is a cataclysm.

And then we may go back, MAY go back to something that is more acceptable, but it seems to be part of the nature.

I really don't like saying this, but of certain humans, and certain individuals.

And once they get that taste of power and they clothe it in freedom.

I talk in the book about how both Hitler and Stalin and Trump use freedom all the time to justify what it is that they're doing, did, and do.

That's the horror of freedom being used in a way that is clearly contrary to what its actual, meaning is.

And you have the good fortune of using as an alternative, liberty.

I think it's a sexy concept.

The truth is that freedom has been associated with Americana and the Manifest Destiny.

At least from the United States perspectives, Liberty does not have a pejorative association.

It does not in any way, suggest that you were going to limit some of your freedoms, by being the responsible adult in the room.

And I'm just encouraging our viewers to take that up.

March with liberty in mind.

I couldn't agree more with you.

Absolutely.

However, I do fear that sometimes the word liberty is being used in the sense of freedom.

You know, that it is.

I have the liberty to do this.

Meaning the same thing.

I have the freedom to do this.

No limitations.

What I'm trying to say in the book is that you cannot have that if you expect others to recognize your freedom, because you must, in reciprocity, recognize their freedom, and therefore there must be a limit because they will clash.

But I do think that the way in which liberty is being used.

Can be problematic, when it is accorded with the same notion as freedom.

And I think that if you don't, as it were, educate or elucidate the notion that there must be responsibility that goes alongside freedom, you will allow the playing field to be occupied by those who simply view it as a license to be selfish, a license for entitlement, a license for instant self-gratification.

My point is, it's a way in the door.

It's a way to get into the door and then have those conversations.

-Yeah.

Okay.

-Right?

And to my point that The Federalist Papers, for example, they could be understood as the Freedom papers or the Liberty papers, but those who study the Federalist Papers understand that the blessing that has preserved the United States amid its current divisiveness that is often overlooked, is that we have a federalism system where there are laboratories of democracy in 50 states.

So if President Trump is in office or President Biden or President Harris is in office, it goes on.

Honestly, where I think that the greatest optimism, that lies is in the fact that without entering into the debate of whether liberty is freedom and responsibility or what is the nature of freedom, I think on an everyday basis, we're constantly self-limiting.

We're recognizing that there must be a limit to what what you do, whether you're driving or whether you're talking, whether you're walking, you curtail yourself to an extent.

Now, not everyone does.

And I think that those who don't who are just say, this is what I want to do and to hell with anyone else, are the ones that are getting most of the airtime.

And therefore, if we ever are involved in doomscrolling, that's exactly what you see.

When you doomscroll, you see all those who are demanding and therefore you think everyone is like that.

I'd like to think that that's not the case, and that for the vast majority of people and for a vast majority of the time, we recognizing that we live in a company of others, and therefore we must concede, we must compromise, and we expect the same from them.

We may be rather peeved when they do not, but then it becomes a matter of negotiation or discussion or argument.

But there is that recognition of reciprocity.

So I think that is the optimistic line.

Right.

And you would envision a world where there liberty courts.

Let me let's start with this question.

Rudimentary, concepts of global rights and how to adjudicate them.

What bodies exist today that actually can adjudicate, human rights abuses?

You have one court primarily, but are there other bodies when it comes to governments or corporations?

Well, I think all courts are liberty courts.

I mean, I don't know what liberty courts are if they are not, what courts are if they're not liberty courts.

But, no, it's not just one court.

And I think it's always a problem and always a mistake to ever look at the international community as being, as it were, the means by which respect for human rights is determined.

What international law does, all of international, but most particularly international human rights law is demand that the states who sign up to it ensure that they implement within their jurisdiction what the human rights obligations are on them, and the rights that all its people and all within its jurisdiction might enjoy.

So you're looking at the whole apparatus of government, including the courts in every state, all 196 of them.

You're not looking at one or many institutions, whether they're tribunals or courts, they are just simply the backstop.

The main game is in the international, in the domestic legal apparatus of the individual states, and that's as it should be.

That is the nature of international law.

Thinking about resolutions to the war torn regions that I referenced, you said that you think the answer has to come from the extremes meeting, as opposed to discovering a middle ground.

And I said to you that I have this fantasy of these companies, like an Apple or Netflix, putting their so-called ethics or beliefs in liberty or freedom to the test.

And bringing together, people in the middle.

So voices that are alternatives to Putin and Zelensky or Netanyahu and Hamas.

And I just wondered if that's something that could also be a solution or a path to achieving resolution to these conflicts.

I certainly didn't want to give the impression that I don't think the middle ground is important.

I think it is, but it's not going to be dispositive.

That's not the end of it.

You're not going to be able to achieve resolution between the two extremes by just simply creating the middle ground.

By the middle ground people, the people who are already in the center.

That must be a ground that is sufficiently attractive for whatever reasons.

That may be circumstantial, maybe accidental.

That brings the two extremes onto it.

And then they say, yeah, okay, we can deal with what you guys have established, but it's ultimately up to us, as it were, the extremes that will determine that.

The middle ground can never on its own be enough, because the extremes will always have that sort of no, we're never going to accept that.

And certainly that I think was the experience, with Northern Ireland.

I think I mentioned in the book as well, one of the most extraordinary moments in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement was, Powell talks about this, of looking at everyone who is on the VIP bench, watching the two prime ministers sign this agreement, and he looks down the line of people that he has been negotiating with for years, and he sees four people at the end wearing these dark suits, looking really tough.

And he thinks, I've never seen them before.

What are they doing in the VIP line?

It turns out that they are the brigade commanders of the IRA.

The people he's never seen, never met, didn't even know their names.

They were the ones that ticked this off.

So you always need to find them, the extremes.

The ones who will always keep the fight going.

We've got to find a ground upon which they can agree, whatever that is.

And however you find it.

But I can't help and look at the cover of your book, and our Mona Lisa, our Statue of Liberty, is not facing the reader.

It's facing something else.

-Yeah.

-And is that not revolution?

When you think of this question of freedom and liberty and revolution or whatever would come in the wake of, a Russia post Putin, or a two state solution, the power of corporations can maybe uplift human dignity in a newfound way as a result of their, entire control of a lot of our systems of learning and of systems of mass communications.

They have not stepped up to the plate.

Again, if you could just reflect on this question of revolution, where revolution stands because there's revolution of war and there's revolution of Apple and Netflix realizing, wow, we could broadcast these conversations with voices of Ukrainians and Russians who want a different future.

But of course, you can go the opposite direction as well.

Of course.

You can get, X formerly Twitter, going the other way rather than being an open forum means or at least this is the way I would interpret it.

Rather than being a more open forum, being one that is more personally controlled, and I think that's a real problem when you have again, it comes back to that, the individuals who have that power to be able to control capitalism in that form, but ultimately capitalism, like any form of economic order, or social order can be and should be the subject of the social contract that we make with our governors.

We say to them, okay, this is what we want you to do, whether it is to fill our pockets or to help our sick, or to help those who are, not housed.

That's the contract that we create.

We then try and hold them to that contract that they will do it in a way in which we expect them to.

Not everything we we will agree to, but that's what we're seeking to do.

That's the essence of a democratic government.

And that, I think, ultimately has to be the way in which we will regulate, how we should regulate corporations through those means.

I've got faith in that.

Maybe asking me how much faith I have in that after the middle of November this year in the United States, I might have a different opinion.

But just at the moment, I have faith in that.

And to our credit, and maybe not their credit, I don't hear Netanyahu or Putin talking about liberty.

I mean, talking about it in the way that would provide a path for other leaders of those countries to say, this is the direction we want to go in.

Well, I think they do talk about freedom.

You know, they're saying, I want to free the Russians, and free the people of Ukraine, who want to be with Russia.

Netanyahu's obviously talking about the freedom of his people to be able to live without fear.

So I think freedom is being used.

Liberty is not in the sense that I mean in the book.

You say they're liberty courts, and I understand that, it's fair.

There is an international court that has been dormant in a lot of instances of, you know, popular, knowledge.

But in fact, it's worked in many instances, even if they're not known to the public at large.

But there is a real, opportunity, I think, from the perspective of mass media to, not just endorse the idea of liberty, but to, summon more forums dedicated to the furtherance of liberty.

I think that's true.

But, you know, I think the International Court of Justice is a signaler.

I mean, that's all it can be.

And it has signaled with respect to the current Ukraine crisis.

Right.

And it has with respect to, Israel and Palestine.

So...

True.

it can do nothing more than signal.

It cannot be the settler of this, because once you got to war, courts are not going to be the settlers.

They're there for posterity.

They're also the means by which information, as it were, provided in a sanitized, logical, evidentiary form.

And so criminal courts, international criminal court, and the domestic courts and the ICJ can do that.

So, again, I would not be as, being marginal of the courts.

I would see the courts as being much more a driver of opinion, maybe not a settler of the disputes, at least not at the international level.

But it's certainly a driver of opinion.

And that's important.

And not the possessor of accountable teeth, sort of the teeth of accountability.

And that's always the problem of international law.

Ultimately its teeth lie in the institutions of the states themselves.

Last point in this section, and I think this is really important new chapter, rehabilitating liberty, disrespect and irresponsibility.

“It is not by chance that so many unwarranted or illegitimate claims to freedom are mounted on the pedestal of disrespecting others.

For the more you denigrate those who might stand in the way of your claim freedom because they object to its impact on them, or because they claim an opposing freedom, the more you are able to self justify sweeping those concerns and counter claims aside.” What is the most important way we can, identify that hypocrisy if you want to call it that.

And, have you found as a lawyer and as a human being that there are certain tactics that you want to impart on how to, effectively, expose that kind of hypocrisy.

Well, it probably won't come as any surprise, to you to hear that, education, of course.

I mean, this is what I do, I mean it in the broadest sense, in the sense that when you have, a political discourse that is infantilized, that's trivialized, that accepts blatant non factual lies, or doesn't appear to worry about their consequences, and not just by those who are already, as it were, sworn to behold to one side or the other.

But too much of, media swallowing it and taking it seriously.

I'm still quite stunned that even organs like the New York Times should try and equate the lies or untruths that are being, presented by the Harris, side as somewhat similar to the Trump lies.

And you think, well, okay, I don't think politics is immune from lying.

It happens all the time.

Fibs.

But in terms of gravity, in terms of the sense of rationality, of reason, of there being a debate that is based on accepted, avenues of discourse, the two are entirely different.

I'm worried that we've got to a point where some journalists, thankfully, in the US, have to point that out, have to say, why are some of our main organs accepting, and entertaining the word salads, the narcissism of one candidate's verbal abuse as somewhat similar to the other and the fact that that is not being called out at a level that is constant and overwhelming, but from the outside, and I spend a lot of time watching and looking at American politics.

I'm still astounded, that the United States has got to the point where it has, one of my countrymen, Fintan O'Toole, has written for many years about the United States, and he says, as an Irishman that, you know, the world has often feared, hated, and been left in wonder at the United States.

And I think that's true certainly from my upbringing.

But now he says, we pity it.

And I'm thinking, well, that's a terrible thing for a country to have said about it.

And it reaches a point where I think you've really got to wonder how we save that circumstance.

And the only way I think to do it is to educate, is to rely on the capacity of reasoned arguments that is based on rational thought on drawing on facts that can be considered, if not beyond dispute, at least within the reasonable bounds, rather than just verbiage that comes out of the top of one's head.

David, thank you for writing this book.

Thank you for your insight today.

Thank you very much.

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