Why is human rights discourse so difficult? In this episode, I talk to Fiona de Londras about what it means to translate human rights into practical instruments and how language frames legal discourses. Fiona explains the difference between a human rights perspective and civil liberties talk that has been so frequent in the pandemic discourse. She shares her insights into why human rights don’t get much talked about in Prime Minister's Questions, we hear about her project on pandemic review, and we talk about the importance of language in the Irish abortion referendum campaign. Fiona tells us about her deep-seated dislike of inaccessible language, cooking as a way to measure time, and words as little pockets of Irishness.

Fiona de Londras is Professor of Global Legal Studies at the University of Birmingham. In 2017 she was awarded the prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize in law. Her most recent book is ‘The Practice and Problems of Transnational Counter-Terrorism’, published in January 2022.