Best 101 quotes of Mary Robinson on MyQuotes

A culture is not an abstract thing. It is a living, evolving process. The aim is to push beyond standard-setting and asserting human rights to make those standards a living reality for people everywhere.

A lot of young people are very cynical about the political framework because they see the countries that preach democracy and human rights being countries largely responsible for the problems in their region.

An endless war against terrorism can tend to inflate the terrorists, because being at war is attractive to some angry, unemployed, disaffected youth.

As a citizen of Ireland I have more sovereignty over our government. Because citizens now have more ways of holding the Irish government to account, not just under Irish constitutional law, but under the European system, at Strasbourg and Brussels. This, I believe, is the benefit for individual citizens.

As Elders, we are fully committed to the principle that all human beings are of equal worth. You will see that we highlight equality for girls and women - not just women's rights. That is important as girls, especially adolescent girls, have been almost invisible in debates on equal rights. Yet it is in adolescence that events can have a huge effect on a girl's life.

Christian fundamentalists seek to roll back women's right to choose in the United States, and then also insist that money against Aids must not go to organisations that help people obtain their reproductive rights. These are extremely worrying trends.

Climate change is the greatest threat to human rights in the 21st century.

Companies should increasingly see themselves as major corporate citizens with a wider responsibility to the community. Nothing less than their reputation - their image - is at stake.

Democracy is about constant vigilance. It's not straightforward, there will always be setbacks and you get particular be it religious fundamentalists, Christian fundamentalism - a partly conservative approach and actually trying to put women in a more traditional role. And we have to resist that.

Democratic governments are not delivering on their promises, which is partly due to the fact that governments are less powerful than they were after the Second World War. There were fewer governments then, but they actually had more political power.

Ethical globalization is possible if only we can hold governments and business accountable for respecting human rights, not just in the traditional political and legal realms, but in everything - health, education and the other social determinants of health - rights to food, safe water, sanitation and so on.

Every government has signed up to a voluntary legal commitment under at least one of the international covenants and conventions based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But who is holding them to account? Our mission is to make it known that these conventions are good tools for civil society to hold their local authority, their government and businesses accountable.

Feel empowered. And if you start to do it, if you start to feel your voice heard, you will never go back.

Finance ministers must realize that the health budget can save them money if it's applied well.

Freedom from discrimination for women, ensuring that female children can learn to read, these are human needs for half the human race, not western values.

From Iraq to Guantanamo Bay, international standards and the framework of international law are being given less when they should be given more importance. I am pleased that the courts in the United States are beginning to review what has happened to those detained in Guantanamo Bay. Similarly in Iraq we need to bring our strategies back within the framework of international norms and law.

Human rights are inscribed in the hearts of people; they were there long before lawmakers drafted their first proclamation.

I agree with those who argue that it is possible to distil from the religions of the world their common values and relevance. As far as I'm concerned I am involved in a complementary process with people who have a moral or spiritual commitment to human rights.

I believe we should try to move away from the vocabulary and attitudes which shape the stereotyping of developed and developing country approaches to human rights issues. We are collective custodians of universal human rights standards, and any sense that we fall into camps of "accuser" and "accused" is absolutely corrosive of our joint purposes. The reality is that no group of countries has any grounds for complacency about its own human rights performance and no group of countries does itself justice by automatically slipping into the "victim" mode.

I do not support individual countries taking military action against another country because of its human rights record, or subsequently justifying taking such action on human rights grounds.

I don't like a bipolar or a unipolar world. I like a multipolar world but on many occasions people have been surprised that South Africa has not seemed, internationally as well as internally, to take a decision that affirms the true values of your Constitution and the vision of those who were there at the beginning - Madiba himself and others.

I don't think we in Ireland have to follow slavishly what other countries have done. Ireland has its own strengths - in family life, in the local community, in the concept of meitheal, a very traditional form of cooperation in rural Ireland. Three or four or five neighbors get together, exchanging labor, farm equipment, and so on. There are strong solidarity overtones. That tradition is being translated today into community self-development.

I felt when I was elected that the most important task on this island [Ireland] was to extend the hand of friendship right across the board to the people of Northern Ireland, to have the beginnings of a real peace process. In consequence, although I have no role in intergovernmental talks or political discussions, that would be my very top priority.

If the Chinese business community takes the Declaration of Human Rights, core labor standards, and environmental standards seriously, the government of China will take them far more seriously, too.

If we took away barriers to women's leadership, we would solve the climate change problem a lot faster

If we want to make progress in key areas now, we have to build a multi-stakeholder process, harnessing the appropriate energies. So not only the politicians but also business, the wider civil society, and the trade union movement all have a contribution to make, whether it is at national or at international level.

If you are small and don't particularly want credit for what you are doing, you can achieve a lot.

I have a sense that South Africa is my other country apart from my native country that I particularly love, [that I] want to see succeed, and I did really want my message to be listened to.

I'm coming to a sense of a women's movement which was extraordinarily important in the struggle for freedom in Ireland and immediately afterwards, but then some of those women who were involved in the movement got involved in representative positions and perhaps some of them got a bit distanced from the grassroots issues. But also the women's movement itself seemed to say, "No, we've got our own government, our own parties in power" and they sat back.

I'm not interested in scoring points or being over-critical of the US administration. I want to find the entry points to try and get it back on track so that the United States can get out of the present disastrous situation it's in, and back into being a constructive force for human rights in the world.

I'm struck by how very few people outside a rarefied world of true believers understand what you mean when you say human rights - that includes development experts and economists who are very keen to implement the UN Millennium Development Goals. They've told me quite frankly, that they don't know exactly what a human rights approach is.

In a society where the rights and potential of women are constrained, no man can be truly free. He may have power, but he will not have freedom.

In general, I don't think that economic, social and cultural rights are primarily a matter of going to court. They are most useful today as commitments which can help ensure effective and equitable policy-making at every level.

In human rights theory it is very important that governments still have the primary responsibility for the standards and provision of such services even if they no longer deliver them. They must insist that the private sector delivers without discrimination. So governments still have responsibility, including the need to influence business.

Ireland is not in a good place at the moment. We have our own humiliation of losing our economic sovereignty, and we're now regaining it slowly and painfully.

I think that we have refined greatly our notions of sovereignty in the EU. Its members consider themselves to be sovereign governments, but they have ceded a part of their sovereignty to the Union level, and their sovereignty is now penetrated by EU law.

It is a great problem for the true international agenda of human rights that the United States, uniquely among industrialised countries, has not ratified three main instruments, has not ratified the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, or the Convention on the Rights of the Child, or the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and we could have so much richer a debate and dialogue on international human rights standards if the superpower would sign up to the agenda.

It is a time when Irish women can link - as they are linking - through networks. They can do this through having an outward-looking attitude to what's happening to women in other countries, and by being affected by a broader debate.

It is necessary to ensure that the requirement to combat terrorism is not used to clamp down on freedom of expression, legitimate dissent, freedom of association and so on.

It is people who go through suffering that have an empathy for the suffering of others.

It remains the task of governments to implement the fundamental human rights standards which should influence all aspects of globalisation, including even trade talks, and to be answerable for this in a democratic way. The structure is international, but the accountability is national and I would like to see that accountability being more penetrating at regional and local level, especially in federal systems.

It's only after their death that people are truly appreciated. It's because they are true to values.

I want to see a UN that enables a gathering of energies in which business plays its proper role.

I want to take human rights out of their box. I want to show the relevance of the universal principles of human rights to the basic needs of health, security, education and equality.

I was elected by the women of Ireland, who instead of rocking the cradle, rocked the system.

I was influenced at an early age by Gandhi, and I have read many biographies of him. I have been greatly influenced in the last twenty years by Mandela. It is amazing that he has managed to keep such a balance, that he came out of prison after such a long time as a rounded, holistic person who could reach difficult accommodations with generosity.

Look, you are interested in trying to make sure that governments keep a clean environment, have regard for the lifestyles of indigenous peoples, and work for fair trade rules. Well, it's exactly the same for human rights - from non-discrimination to the basic rights to food, safe water, education and health care. We are talking rights not needs. There are standards that governments have signed up to - but nobody is holding them to account.

Many people think that we have no shared value system in the world today but we actually do.

Many people today in the developed countries are so far removed from poverty and suffering and starvation that they lack empathy for the sufferings of others.

Membership in the European Community, now the European Union, has enabled Ireland to re-find its sense of participation - cultural, political, social - at the European level. I think that also opens up possibilities for Ireland as a European country to look outward - to look particularly, for example, at countries to which a lot of Irish people emigrated, to our links - our human links - with the United States, with Canada, with Australia, with New Zealand. And to look also, because of our history, at our links to the developing countries.