Racism thrives on your silence and apathy, says human rights lawyer Dexter Dias. Telling the story of a harrowing UK court case that spotlights the corrosive effects of injustice, Dias urges us all to speak out and expose toxic myths...

There is an epidemic of HIV, and with it an epidemic of bad laws -- laws that effectively criminalize being HIV positive. At the TEDxSummit in Doha, TED Fellow Shereen El-Feki gives a forceful argument that these laws, based in stigma,...

The open-source world has learned to deal with a flood of new, oftentimes divergent, ideas using hosting services like GitHub -- so why can’t governments? In this rousing talk Clay Shirky shows how democracies can take a lesson from the...

In this gripping talk, lawyer Jason McCue urges for a new way to attack terrorism, to weaken its credibility with those who are buying the product -- the recruits. He shares stories of real cases where he and other activists used this...

How do we build a society without fossil fuels? using her native Costa Rica as an example of positive action on environmental protection and renewables, climate advocate Monica Araya outlines a bold vision for a world committed to clean...

At the US-Mexico border, policies of prolonged detention and family separation have made seeking asylum in the United States difficult and dangerous. In this raw and heartfelt talk, immigration attorney Erika Pinheiro offers a glimpse...

What can you do when the wheels of justice don't turn fast enough? Or when they don't turn at all? Vivek Maru is working to transform the relationship between people and law, turning law from an abstraction or threat into something that...

Questionable phone calls, concerning emails, heart-rending stories from a sudden new friend in need of endless financial support: elder abuse can take many forms, says lawyer Jane Walsh. And as technology becomes more sophisticated,...

The land of the free has become a legal minefield, says Philip K. Howard -- especially for teachers and doctors, whose work has been paralyzed by fear of suits. What's the answer? A lawyer himself, Howard has four propositions for...

Only one in nine people in the united States gets the care and treatment they need for addiction and substance abuse. A former Director of National Drug Control Policy, Michael Botticelli is working to end this epidemic and treat people...

Evoke a familiar tune in a song and get slapped with a lawsuit ... it's a tale almost as old as copyright itself. Lawyer and technologist Damien Riehl digs into why "owning" a melody is a ludicrous legal assertion and composes a radical...

The nuclear family model may no longer be the norm in the US, but it's still the basis for social and economic benefits like health care, tax breaks and citizenship. Lawyer and LBGTQIA advocate Diana Adams believes that all families,...

What's stopping the American government from recording your phone calls, reading your emails and monitoring your location? Very little, says surveillance and cybersecurity counsel Jennifer Granick. The government collects all kinds of...

Why is China appointing thousands of judges to environmental courts and training prosecutors to bring cases to them, even if it means suing the government? Eco-lawyer James Thornton takes us inside the country's growing effort to use the...

Water is essential to life. Yet in the eyes of the law, it remains largely unprotected -- leaving many communities without access to safe drinking water, says legal scholar Kelsey Leonard. In this powerful talk, she shows why granting...

Chimpanzees are people too, you know. Ok, not exactly. But lawyer Steven Wise has spent the last 30 years working to change these animals' status from "things" to "persons." It's not a matter of legal semantics; as he describes in this...

Imagine living with no significant human contact for years, even decades, in a cell the size of a small bathroom. This is the reality for those in long-term solitary confinement, a form of imprisonment regularly imposed in US prisons. In...

In an unmissable talk, journalist Carole Cadwalladr digs into one of the most perplexing events in recent times: the UK's super-close 2016 vote to leave the European Union. Tracking the result to a barrage of misleading Facebook ads...

FLA head Auret van Heerden talks about the next frontier of workers' rights -- globalized industries where no single national body can keep workers safe and protected. How can we keep our global supply chains honest? Van Heerden makes...

When a kid commits a crime, the uS justice system has a choice: prosecute to the full extent of the law, or take a step back and ask if saddling young people with criminal records is the right thing to do every time. In this searching...

Hank has some thoughts on the news that several Italian scientists who were convicted of 29 counts manslaughter for making an "inadequate risk-assessment" before an earthquake.

Baratunde Thurston explores the phenomenon of white Americans calling the police on black Americans who have committed the crimes of ... eating, walking or generally "living while black." In this profound, thought-provoking and often...

Domestic workers are entrusted with the most precious aspects of people's lives -- they're the nannies, the elder-care workers and the house cleaners who do the work that makes all other work possible. Too often, they're invisible, taken...

There is a corruption at the heart of American politics, caused by the dependence of Congressional candidates on funding from the tiniest percentage of citizens. That's the argument at the core of this blistering talk by legal scholar...