Looking at the history of self-killing from classical antiquity through the period of prohibition by Church and State to the current era of partial decriminalisation, and discussing recent legal challenges including those of Diane Pretty, Debbie Purdy and Tony Nicklinson, Paul Bowen QC poses the question whether the time has now come to recognise a right to die at the time, and in the manner, of the individual’s choice.

 

Paul Bowen QC is a human rights barrister based at Doughty Street Chambers in London specialising in cases against the State and state bodies on behalf of vulnerable and marginalised individuals, in particular people with physical and mental disabilities, prisoners, asylum seekers, terrorist suspects and the families of people who have died in custody or at the hands of state agents.  He has a particular interest in the right of autonomy and acted for Debbie Purdy and Tony Nicklinson in their ‘right to die’ cases.  Paul lives in Brighton with his wife and two small children.

An examination of the conflict of interest between our society’s current lifestyle and future generation’s need for a stable planet.

Duncan will present a summary of scientific consensus on climate change, and discuss the social and political implications.

He will explore what needs to be done to avoid this, and whether the actions we are currently taking to protect the environment are in fact just ineffectual, easy options.

In short: Despite our apparent intelligence, are we going to hell in a hand cart?

 

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Duncan Roy is a barrister and former fire eater. He is a also prolific blogger (http://blog.scrapperduncan.com). You can follow him on twitter at @scrapperduncan.

 

“Beyond representative democracy: adventures in trusting the public”

In her 1977 novel The Dispossessed, Ursula le Guin creates an egalitarian, anarchist society on the planet Anarres. Life on Anarres is hard, communal, but is portrayed as basically happy. However, after 150 years or so, the revolution starts to break down as authoritarian structures begin being developed.

The fight for democracy is often told as a fight about systems of government, different ways to cast our votes and constitutional change, but this is only part of the picture. However good it is, any system or constitution will eventually be subverted by those with power and money. In this talk Simon will explore experiments over the past 10 years or so to engage the public beyond the electoral cycle. He’ll draw on these to discuss ways in which the public voice could be more systematically brought into the way we make the most important decisions facing our country and their potential to hold decision-makers to account. He’ll contrast this to recent moves by the coalition government to introduce more direct democracy. While he’ll not chart a clear path to a mythical, happy, communal society, he’ll suggest a few faltering steps towards a system of government where the voices of citizens are heard and acted on more clearly, and might just keep our elected representatives on the straight and narrow.

 

Simon Burall is the Director of Involve. He has long and extensive experience the fields of democratic reform, governance, public participation, stakeholder engagement, and accountability and transparency. He has worked at the national level in Africa, Asia and Europe as well as on related issues of global governance and democracy.

In addition to his role with Involve, Simon is also the Chair of Democratic Audit, an Ambassador for WWF UK and Head of Dialogue at the ScienceWise Expert Resource Centre.

Before moving to Involve Simon was a Research Fellow at ODI from 2006 – 2009. His interests included stakeholder engagement in the reform of the international aid delivery system and how to make development finance more effective. Prior to this he was the Executive Director of the One World Trust from 1999 – 2005 where he initiated and oversaw the development of the influential Global Accountability Index. Before joining the Trust, Simon re-established the UK volunteer network for AFS, an organisation based in Leeds co-ordinating intercultural exchange visits. Simon has taught both science and English in Namibia and Zimbabwe and was an election monitor in Bosnia Herzegovina in 1997.

The last meeting before our summer break was addressed by one of our members, Professor Laurence Lerner, who spoke on some of the themes explored by Michael Sendal in his book “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets“.

There were plenty of contributions from those who attended, and we signed up several new members.

I thought I’d put up a link to Professor Sendal himself speaking about this, for those who might want to find out more. The video below is from an event held at the LSE in 2009.