Following the unprecedented horrors of the Second World War, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. What is the historical and moral significance of this Declaration in the Global Age? What does it mean to say that dignity is "inherent" to human nature, and how can this assertion be reconciled with the greed and aggression that characterizes politics? How can humankind transcend divisive ideologies and religious conflicts in order to build a just and unified world order? In the shadow of catastrophic climate change, do we need to go beyond human rights to save our civilization from collapse? These and other themes will be explored in this talk by Payam Akhavan.

Payam Akhavan is an UN prosecutor, human rights scholar, international lawyer, professor at University of Toronto, Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, 2017 CBC Massey Lecturer, author of the bestselling "In Search of a Better World".