The HSC hosted its final policy soirée of the year with the former Vice President of the Maldives.

Private screening of the Oscar-nominated, Emmy-shortlisted film "My Enemy, My Brother", which HSC co-sponsored and impact produced.

Having come a long way internationally in its eight short years of independence, the country now needs to do the same domestically – and show both the international community and its own people that it is ready for the difficult road ahead.

There is no shortage of evidence of how in the past Western-supplied goods became tools of repression.

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.

There has been an emerging tension between liberal top-down peacebuilding and the growing belief that grassroots bottom up solutions are required alongside wider national level approaches. Intervention and peacebuilding in Africa have largely been shaped by militaristic, externally led, top-down approaches. These approaches have had varying degrees of success, with local populations often feeling alienated from peacebuilders and their externally imposed, ill-fitting intervention strategies. These interventions have historically shown a disregard for cultural context and local processes that are key to building sustainable peace during and after conflict.

June 2013 saw the second turnover in the Egyptian democratic transition when millions of people gathered on the streets of Cairo to demand an immediate resignation of the first democratically elected Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi. Morsi’s one year tenure was marked by increasing authoritarianism and islamisation, which were both reflected in the draft constitution introduced by the Morsi Government in November 2013 (the 2013 constitution).

Increased awareness and campaigning around the issue is forcing politicians and others to make a stand and crack down on the practice.

The most important eight words in so-called 'international law' are in Article 3 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which proclaims that all human beings are guaranteed 'the right to life, liberty and security of person.'

In the comfortable West we sometimes forget that, having lived 66 years without a major war, the geopolitical situation still changes in ways which directly affect us, one way or the other.