SEASON 8: Horrors & Hope

In our seventh episode, host Neema Jayasinghe joins panellist Yasmin Homer to discuss the work of women peacebuilders with guests Eva Tabbasam (GAPS UK) and Andrea Filippi (PeaceWomen Across the Globe). We discuss the importance of fostering and protecting civil society networks in peacetime and wartime, the challenges of political will, and how the Women, Peace, Security Agenda needs to expand its feminist focus through a more inclusive intersectionality. With insights from GAPS UK’s work in Afghanistan and PeaceWomen Across the Globe’s networks between Columbia, Nepal and the Philippines, this episode crosses local, national, and international borders in a timely conversation about conflict resolution and representation. 

In our sixth episode, host Neema Jayasignhe is joined by previous podcast host and panellist, Dr Maryam Tanwir. With special guest, Professor Sam Vaknin, the episode unpacks discourses related to the psychology of personal border violations in mental abuse. The conversation questions how borders and boundaries are not only demarcated, violated or transgressed in global politics but also at the level of the personal. Here, physical or mental abuse is a form of structured aggression and can be surreptitious, coercive or disguised in a myriad of ways. Invariably, it involves the violation of our borders and boundaries- both personal and societal. In this episode, we explore these various levels of abuse and their psychological implications.

For our fifth episode, panellist Clare Francis discusses the interplay of poetry and protest in the Iranian state with Dr. Fatemeh Shams, an activist, award-winning poet, and Persian literary scholar. Alongside host Neema Jayasinghe, they explore the boundaries of art and activism in Iran, where successive regimes have historically sought to enforce strict limitations around acceptable versus unacceptable forms of activism. Protest movements challenge these boundaries in myriad creative ways, but they are at constant risk of co-option by the state. By examining the intersection of poetry and protest in Iran’s women-led uprising – known globally by the catch cry ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ – Dr. Shams gives voice to both the challenges and the revolutionary potential of women’s activism in Iran.

In this episode, panellist Vanessa Dib joins host Neema Jayasinghe to discuss developments of lawfare, the power of law being used as a weapon of conflict, with guest Jason McCue. In this day and age, wars can take place within and outside the traditional confines of borders and boundaries as wars are increasingly started, fought and ended through lawfare. To better situate the discussion, legal expert Jason McCue explores what lawfare is, how it is used today, and future developments of lawfare through the case study of the Libyan civil war.

In this episode, host Neema Jayasinghe is joined by panellist Olivia Chen and guest Professor Gavin Phillipson to discuss the legal connotations of privacy for public figures. Professor Phillipson provides a detailed insight into how the law utilises both objective and subjective criteria to assess whether a person has a ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’, as well as how the status of a public figure enters into the consideration process. Moreover, the panel discusses whether it is reasonable to hold public figures to reduced rights of privacy based upon their ‘role model’ responsibilities.

This episode focuses on assessing the Rwanda Asylum Plan – UK’s most controversial migration policy in recent years. According to the proposal, 99 asylum seekers whose claims were declared “inadmissible” were scheduled to embark on a flight relocating them to Rwanda on the 14th of June 2022. While never enacted, the plan attracted widespread media attention and the criticism of many NGOs fighting for migrants rights. Our guests, Peter Wiliam Walsh and Colin Yeo will discuss the origin of this policy, its problematic nature as well as what could be done in the future to avoid similar mistakes. In our modern society, we expect developed democracies like the United Kingdom to set a positive example when it comes to respecting human rights. So, was this just a policy accident in the UK government’s overly nationalist agenda or is this the beginning of a hostile immigration environment in post-Brexit Britain? Only time will tell.

In our first episode, host Neema Jayasinghe is joined by panellist Charlotte Duthie to discuss the contemporary race for justice in Ukraine with guest Dr. Felicity Gerry KC. The ongoing war in Ukraine has recently hit its year-long mark since the initial Russian invasion in February 2022. This episode will focus on discussing and evaluating the different avenues for achieving transitional justice for Ukrainians. Are Russian military leaders better dealt with by the international community, the Ukrainian judiciary, or a synthesis of the two? As a practitioner, Dr. Felicity Gerry KC offers a refreshing and optimistic insight into the capacity of international criminal and humanitarian law to prosecute such individuals in the future.

In this first episode of Season 7, we gather our panelists to discuss the topics that will be on our minds this season. From exploring the boundaries of climate governance to the UK’s Rwanda Asylum Plan, we’re covering a global range of issues at the cutting edge of human rights advocacy, research and policy.