The delicate balance between protecting citizens’ security and infringing their rights poses a significant challenge to governments.

There is a very particular, if narrow-minded, logic to his sitting on his hands whilst the world degenerates into chaos.

There is one major issue that faces the Security Council: legitimacy.

If the Security Council fails to reform it is ultimately doomed to fail.

More than 1,750 people have died thus far in 2015 from their attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea and enter Europe

When the UN was formed, 22% of its members were in the Security Council; now that figure lies at only 8%.

Last year’s rout of the Iraqi Army in the northern city of Mosul by ISIS represented the nadir of the post-2003 Iraqi state. But if the country’s long-term prospects have brightened noticeably since the dark summer of 2014, its path to that future is still filled with uncertainty.

As a collective we cannot argue to rally around the notion of human rights and allow the continued use of the death penalty. Human rights will only prevail if abolition becomes the adopted norm.

Ultimately the odds were never in Mr Blair’s favour. He took on an impossible and thankless task

We should hope these new challenges in Ukraine and in the south with ISIS will strengthen the alliance once more for the future – a future with a potentially bigger challenge involving the economic and military rise of China.