Date/Time: 6th March 2012

‘From early childhood memories of my mother reading to me, to recent years when my own child began to share my love of reading, few influences have moved me as much or seemed as capable of inspiring the empathy and the values that constitute a belief in human rights.’

Where do human rights come from; are they passing figments of the imagination or something more real and enduring; what makes us value human rights across the globe, from one generation to the next? In her 2012 Fickling Lecture, Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, drew on some favourite children’s stories to illustrate how they can be as much a force for human rights and freedoms as political speeches and legal doctrine.