Consortium News looked back at the career of Richard Falk, a former U.N. special rapporteur on Palestine, and outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy, who joined CN Live! on March 17, 2021.
CN Live! hosts Elizabeth Vos and Joe Lauria interviewed Prof. Richard Falk on March 17, 2021 about his then new memoir, Public Intellectual. Falk, who was interrogated for hours last week by Canadian authorities over his views on Palestine, became prominent in the United States and internationally after visits to North Vietnam where he met PM Pham Von Dong; to Iran during the Islamic Revolution and with Ayatollah Khomeini in Paris; to South Africa where he met with Nelson Mandela at the height of the struggle against apartheid, and frequently to Palestine and Israel.
His memoir relates encounters with well-known public figures in law, academia, political activism and Hollywood. Falk mentored the thesis of former F.B.I. Director Robert Mueller, and he taught Gen. David Petraeus. Falk’s writings and activism collided with the U.S. over militarism, nuclear weapons and its Palestine-Israel foreign policy, especially when he was the U.N. special rapporteur on Palestine.
Falk was named the 2010 Outstanding Public Scholar in Political Economy by the International Studies Association. He has been nominated annually for the Nobel Peace Prize since 2009.
“This intimate and penetrating account of a remarkable life is rich in insights about topics ranging from the academic world to global affairs to prospects for a livable society. A gripping story, with many lessons for a troubled world.”– NOAM CHOMSKY
“Richard Falk is one of the few great public intellectuals and citizen pilgrims who has preserved his integrity and consistency in our dark and decadent times. This wise and powerful memoir is a gift that bestows us with a tear-soaked truth and blood-stained hope.” — CORNEL WEST
“Richard Falk’s Public Intellectual is a citizen pilgrims journey across the world , over nearly a century, contributing to peace in Vietnam, Iran, Palestine …Through his life and ideas he invites us to imagine and shape the ‘politics of impossibility ‘ to heal our ‘endangered planet’ and our fractured societies. Whether you are a peace activist or researcher, or you care about the earth and fellow human beings , Public Intellectual will enrich you intellectually and politically.” — VANDANA SHIVA
“Richard Falk recounts a life well spent trying to bend the arc of international law toward global justice. A Don Quixote tilting nobly at real dragons. His culminating vision of a better or even livable future—a ‘necessary utopia’—evokes with current urgency the slogan of Paris, May 1968: ‘Be realistic: demand the impossible.’” — DANIEL ELLSBERG
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Richard Falk giving a press briefing at the U.N. in 2012, when he was special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian occupied territories since 1967. (U.N. Photo/JC McIlwaine)