Confessions and Lessons from LSE

It was not easy to get an accurate idea of what it would be like at the London School of Economics. The only thing I was certain of was that it was going to be an experience which would broaden my perspective and, fingers-crossed, my employment horizons. Whilst both those things were absolutely true, it was the unexpected lessons and experiences outside the classroom which I grew from the most.  This post is written for my younger self who was woefully under-prepared for what was to be a very challenging albeit very rewarding year.  

The Greenhouse Effect

In a class of 280 students there were around 60 nations represented from Iceland to Azerbaijan, Japan through to Kuwait - it was almost like being at the UN. Nations with large delegations tended to congeal into homogeneous groupings and throughout the year seemed to grow into their national stereotypes (warning: gross generalisations follow). 

The Frenchies, with a penchant for striped shirts, were an amicable bunch.  No matter how stressed, they were always charming and good-natured - "I 'ave two exams today so I'm going to play some squash, 'ave a nap and zen I'll see 'ow it goes".  When I asked how they managed to remain so effortlessly cool I was told that "you just need to give less of a sheet about zings, zat's ze secret to 'appiness".  It was a lesson I would hear a few times that year and, as a philosophy for survival, I think they might be on to something.

In contrast, Ze Tchermans took everything seriously- they were always well-presented in their freshly laundered shirts and leather satchels.  Despite already having several postgraduate degrees a piece, it would seem that an LLM from the UK was highly prized by German law firms who went to extravagant lengths to seduce the German cohort including; cocktails at the London Eye before a three star dining experience and a weekend in the Cotswolds complete with clay pigeon shooting and fireside tipples. For the most part, they had a tendency to be quite critical. On more than one occasion I was confronted with "this didn't work so well because of that" or the subtle "you're wrong and here's why".  To be fair, they were just as brutal on themselves and I suspect it's a side-effect of Germany's unforgiving legal education system.

There were large groups of Belgians, Greeks, Indians and Brazilians too and a hundred thousand Chinese students who generally studied the most commercially viable subjects. If China takes over the world there might not be jurisprudence but at least we will have an impeccable financial structure.

There were also a surprising volume of multi-citizenship combos; Belgian/Taiwanese; Italian/Brazilian, Australian/Lebanese and that classic Swiss/Welsch duo. Their enviable ability to flit seamlessly between languages and cultures complimented their broad and interesting global attitudes. Others were even more curious characters. On my first day, I remember meeting someone dressed like an 18th Century peasant - complete with rope belt, oiled beard and floppy brown felt hat. I'm still not sure whether this was national dress, a hipster-chic fashion statement or an ardent expression of Marxism. The student body was certainly a rich cultural tapestry.

The compact nature of the campus, covering just a square kilometer, meant that we basically lived on top of each other. Friendships and rivalries developed quickly like greenhouse tomatoes, which made for a very heated and stressful environment at times. In some ways it was exactly like high school, except a high school filled with competitive multilingual geniuses. I was grateful when awe of my colleagues faded to a healthy disillusionment but early on, I felt like a complete fraud and it took me a while to find my own groove.

Work hard, play hard, sleep optional

The LSE lifestyle was a physical, mental and emotional endurance test that carried on outside of the classroom and library through an endless series of combative discourses with peers.  I have a fond memory of dancing in a club at 2 am whilst debating critical legal theory with Avicii blaring "wake me up when it's all over" above our heads.  I also remember sneaking around a Royal Lodge in the Grounds of Windsor Castle late at night, sipping from hipflasks and assessing the merits of the motion "what's the point of Belgium".  Like I said, we were a curious bunch.

If you didn't live in the heart of London, it was a very good idea to make friends with those who did.  Living 7km from campus in Greenwich, in the dreaded "zone 2", meant that getting home after midnight was always an adventure - it might as well have been Mongolia. London taxis were a luxury beyond my financial means so beyond the witching hour I had to either face the night bus along with its treacherous interchange at Elephant and Castle - aka "stab central" - or beg some floorspace from the generosity of my colleagues, almost all of whom lived in tiny one bed hostel rooms near campus. One night at 4am, I recall sitting on the floor of a friend's apartment, sharing Maccas and simultaneously laughing at myself whilst drunkenly sobbing "there's just no room for judicial review!" There was a brilliant legal epiphany had that night though I can't for the life of me remember what it was.

Shanti and Shakti

I threw myself at the program with a fervent zeal and a personal challenge to meet everyone, sign up to everything and expose myself to all that LSE has to offer.  This peppy participation turned out to be both a very good and a very bad idea. My extracurricular activities were much more time consuming than expected. Coupling that with the academic challenges, some hefty financial stress and the physiological effects of three winters in a row, ensured that the first semester really took its toll on my wellbeing.

So I learned the hard way where my limitations lay and when it's appropriate to break them.  If you go too fast you won't reach a mythical sixth gear, you'll just hit a wall and crumble into a small heap, which is a rather difficult place to look dignified from.  

After one such episode, I received some valuable wisdom from a friend. She made me a gift of two Hindi words: "Shanti" (meaning peace) and "Shakti" (meaning strength) and suggested that I use them as a sort of mantra. "Peace" came to mean kindness to myself and tolerance toward others and "strength" was a reminder that sometimes you just need to swallow some rocks and harden up.  All in all, my time at LSE was an important and much needed lesson in self-preservation.

The Joy of Hindsight

LSE students are taught to live by the motto rerum cognoscere causa (know the cause of things). For me, this meant not only deconstructing the world around me but an intrusive deconstruction of myself.  I suspect that this aspect of my experience was fairly universal. When the jigsaw was put back together, the picture was quite different from when I started.  In hindsight, that was a good thing.  

If I have one piece of advice for my younger self it would simply be this: Pace yourself and enjoy the ride. It won't always be easy but it will be worth it. Bonne Chance! Viel Erfolg! and Break a Leg! (you're gonna need it).

Human Rights - Failure or Forgotten Revolution?

I get it. Talking about systemic failure isn't sexy. People want someone to point their finger at and say "you're the reason why this has happened". Be it fears of rising house prices, the Greek debt crisis or an environmental disaster, people want someone to blame. Saying "perhaps there is something about our system which is causing these problems" is a big turn off - it's an unrealistic criticism because no one wants to contemplate that the problems can't simply be cut out, like a tumor.  

Human Rights are wonderful things, the vision of human rights represents the very best of humanity. In the wake of the atrocities of WW2, a broken and frail world said "never again". We wrote our ideas down and we talked about it. We've been writing about it and talking about it ever since. But writing about it and talking about it didn't stop the acts of genocide and aggression that have come since or the arbitrary detention of asylum seekers and their children or the environmental devastation of communities living under the shadow of transnational corporations. Are we blind to the flaws of a system which allows the worst offenders to slip through the cracks? We need to be critical about the system of international human rights if we are to find a solution that truly protects the individual from the exercise of arbitrary power and abuse.  Anything less, is a band aid approach at best, a talk fest at worst.

It’s 2015, most of the major human rights treaties have been ratified by the vast majority of countries. And yet, it is hard to argue that human rights are a global success.  Let’s examine the state of affairs:

• Women still lack equality and political and religious freedoms are restricted in China and much of the Arab World;
• Political authoritarianism has gained ground in Russia, Central Asia and parts of Latin America;
• Europe’s strength as a bastion of human rights has floundered.  It has turned inward as it has struggled with debt crisis, xenophobia and disillusionment with Strasbourg and Brussels.
• The United States, still carries out the death penalty, exercises torture and arbitrary detention in the wake of 9/11.  It also continues to kill civilians with drone strikes.  
• Slavery and the trafficking of human lives continues to flourish worldwide.

Surely the vision of international human rights wasn’t supposed to be like this. 

In this light, international human rights are looking more and more like simple acts of hubris. The reality is international human rights ("IHR") wrestle with legitimacy because of problems with enforcement and inconsistency of interpretation. What is left is simply a language of IHR- words we like to say and hear. But since when did the language of IHR become so non-committal and timid?  Engaging in IHR these days has come to mean translating what were calls for recognition, or respect, or dignity, into "mechanisms", "structures" and “accountability feedback loops”. A language riddled with terms and definitions that is comically far from the humanity and the suffering we were supposed to be addressing.  A language which has clearly toxified the hopes and ambition of States in the wake of the atrocities of WW2. 

Why has international human rights reached this ambiguous place? The answer can be found in its genesis. Human rights are a fragment of public international law, a system whose sole members are states and not individuals (or companies for that matter).  The fundamental cornerstone of this system is sovereignty. And really, "sovereignty" is just a fancy legal term for saying “mind your own business” when one state wants to complain about what another state is up to or how it is treating its citizens. There is no international forum for victims to bring their claims and if the local courts are corrupt, well then that's just too bad. You see, human rights exist in a system geared against their success; sovereignty is not only the nemesis of human rights but is like Goliath to David - except without the bit where David somehow miraculously wins with just one throw of his stone.

Have human rights failed us? Well, I think it really depends on who you are and where you are in the world. If you were to look down from wherever you are on Mount Privilege you might see that a radically different approach to IHR is clearly long overdue. Being complacent (it's the best we've got) wistful (human rights just need more time to grow) or unyieldingly cynical (money and warheads are the only laws in this world) will not bring relief. We need to stop shrugging off the burden of upholding human rights onto bureaucrats and we certainly need to stop assuming that the powers-that-be are doing a good job of maintaining human rights behind closed doors. The problems are systemic which mean they start at the very bottom and are riddled all the way to the very top. 

We can't keep crying "never again" every time an international humanitarian crisis crops up and all the while sit there wringing our hands, hoping for a system which offers resolution. Wanting and hoping that the IHR system will come of age or change on its own volition will not offer remedy to those who need it most. We need to stay critical and vigilant of the systems around us - be conscious consumers, dedicated voters and vocal supporters of our rights and the rights of others. The battle for human rights, was not won 60 years ago, it had only just begun.