House of Wisdom: How Ideas Can Shape the World Aniq Ahmed & Deepak Mawar

Mahatma Ghandhi famously said that ‘Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man’… but how true is such an assertion? In this episode, we talk to Dr. Luke Abbs about the use of nonviolent resistance and its effect on achieving peace and democracy.

The House of Wisdom Podcast is proud to present our very first Academics Assemble event. We will bring back some of our most popular guests to talk about Global Cooperation in a Post-Covid World. Register to attend this live online event on www.kcl.ac.uk/law/events.

International Law has expanded vastly in the last hundred years with the development of human rights, various movements of independence around the world and the breakout of a plethora NGOs focused on shining a light on important global issues. However, how much as international law done to protect minorities, especially in postcolonial states? In Professor Shahabuddin’s recently released book ‘Minorities and the Making of Postcolonial States in International Law’, we explore this theme to unravel the western orientated nature of international law and how this has affected ethnic minorities such as the Rohingyas in Myanmar and the Rakhine Buddhists in Bangladesh.

Bringing together nearly 190 countries for the Paris Agreement is an amazing achievement. Tackling a planetary challenge such as climate change is no easy feat, however, it requires coordinated solutions and innovations at every level. But how do we translate a big goal like preventing a 2 degrees rise in warming into actions the state, the private sector and us can understand and work towards, especially when there is no precedent for solving such a challenge? In this episode, we talk to Dr. Robert Charnock about how we can coordinate the diverse array of action that is required to tackle global complex challenges.

The worst part about having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don't. The UN has made it a core statement as part of their Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and governments worldwide are waking up to the sleeping giant which is mental health. In this episode, we talk to Dr. Nicole Votruba about the role stigma plays in mental health issues and we discuss the potential policy actions governments could take to improve outcomes for individuals.

Is international law capable of dealing with planetary issues such as climate change... and how important is the role of the academic in modern times? In this episode we talk to Professor Gleider Hernandez about how climate change litigation can be an integral tool for dealing with the environmental issues that the world is currently wrestling with, whether academics should inspire social or political change and why theoretical research is as important as ever.