Niall Ferguson Quotes

There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they've been liberated.

The U.S.-led western alliance, while acting as an advocate of democracy, rule of law and human rights, is acting from the opposite position, rejecting the democratic principle of the sovereign right of states enshrined in the U.N. Charter and trying to decide for others what is good and what is bad.

I refer to calls for humanitarian intervention in the affairs of another state - a new idea, this - even when they are made under the pretext of defending human rights and freedoms.

We remain in Iraq because we know that sometimes liberty needs some nursing before it can grow on its own.

If a strong government finds that it can, with impunity, destroy a weak people, then the hour has struck for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment.

I don't want anything from Cuba. I want them to be free and enjoy the things I enjoy.

I think no one knows what humanitarian intervention means. If I were a person who was non-American, I would think humanitarian intervention is just another name for United States imperialism.

It is our moral duty to intervene today, straight away, to help the Iraqi people in their difficulty. Iraq has to be given back to the Iraqi people

Those who try to give us advice on matters of human rights do nothing but provoke an ironic smile among us. We will not permit anyone to interfere in our affairs.

Nations are at liberty to use their own resources in such manner, and to apply them to such purposes as they may deem best, provided they do not violate the perfect rights of other nations, nor endanger their safety, nor infringe the indispensable duties of humanity

The sovereignty of states is a fairly archaic notion. If the rulers abuse their power and the people, what do you do then. The must be an international duty to protect.

The promotion and preservation of human rights can and should be the driving force for world affairs.

National sovereignty is never an excuse for slaughtering your own people

There are millions of people all over the world, right now, who are looking to the United Nations for protection and redress against the violation of their rights and deprivation of their freedoms.

Distinguish we must between the right of the people the world over to be free and our obligation to free them. We have a solemn [negative] duty not to violate the rights of foreigners everywhere to life, liberty and property. But we have no duty to uphold their rights. Why? Because the ostensible upholding of the negative rights of the world's citizens involves compromising the negative liberties of Americans—our lives, our liberties and our livelihoods. A just government’s duty is to its own citizens first.

The way governments treat their own citizens matters; it matters because it can have a direct impact on international peace and security - and on our respective national security interests.

The Great Seal was an early proclamation of 'humanitarian intervention,' to use the currently fashionable phrase.

America should always stand for human rights and freedom, but not through endless military intervention.

America has not dictated to other nations. We have freed other nations from dictators.

If succeeding generations of Americans don't understand the concepts of justice, individual rights, free enterprise, capitalism, sovereignty or national security, there can be no guarantee that those concepts - or others like them - will continue.

We must provide all kinds of freedom, personal and economic, to all Iraqis. I will fight for that.

Global markets must be balanced by global values such as respect for human rights and international law, democracy, security and sustainable economic and environmental development.

When human rights are systematically abused, it raises the question whether it may be legitimate in some circumstances for the international community to intervene within individual states as well as in conflicts between states.

Liberals have been committed to the principles of human rights, international stability, and international justice. They have also sought international solutions to those problems which have demanded collective attention.

The moral equation strongly tells everyone who understands freedom, who understands morality, that Israel is engaging in a just war in defense of its people and its freedom.