Harper Lee's classic 1960 novel To Kill A Mockingbird won the Pulitzer Prize and has become a timeless American classic.

Rod Earle, OU academic lead for youth justice, looks at why American 'supercop' Bill Bratton has been flown into the UK to help the Government tackle gang crime in the wake of the summer riots.  

Although what constitutes justice may vary depending on culture or historical context, all forms of justice are built on a foundation of moral assumptions that include ideas about ethics, fairness and the law. Philosophers have often debated the nature of both morality and justice and their relationship with each other and in this collection we explore some of the most influential ideas on the topics from Kant to Bentham and investigate problems such as can inequalities be justified, provided they are to the benefit of the worst off?

This material forms part of The Open University course A222 Exploring philosophy.

Should anyone be held imprisoned without charge? Stephen Fry explains how, despite Habeas Corpus, this can still happen. 

This animation debates one of the most searching ideas of legal thought: John Rawls' assertion of the value of a veil of ignorance.

The urgency for philosophers to abandon their castles in the air is caught in Amartya Sen's The Idea Of Justice, says Charles Barclay Roger.

Melanie Wright assesses "The Passion" on BBC.

This innovative album introduces one of the biggest, and most complex, of today’s environmental problems – climate change. It features the hard-hitting, "Who Will Pay", selected as a finalist in an international film competition on "Vulnerability Exposed: The Social Dimensions of Climate Change" organised by the World Bank. This 'Earth in Crisis' album offer a sophisticated understanding of the processes and players that shape contemporary international environmental problems, evaluates what can and should be done in the future, and explores how responses to these dilemmas are intertwined with issues of development, international justice and responsibility. The eleven video tracks focus on climate change induced flooding in the delta regions of Bangladesh and in the Thames region of the UK. In the first five audio tracks, members of The Open University course team explore the main issues raised in the videos. The final three audio tracks explore some of the wider political and scientific dimensions of climate change. This material forms part of The Open University course DU311, Earth in crisis: environmental policy in an international context.

In this free course, learners will develop and explore skills to empower themselves as leaders.