23rd January 2017
Geneva, Switzerland
Last week the British Prime Minister Theresa May set out her plan for Britain’s orderly departure from the European Union. Britain’s transition in the WTO is an important and necessary part of this process. Ensuring that goes smoothly is one of the over-riding priorities of the Mission I lead in Geneva. British ministers in fact […]
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12th December 2016
Geneva, Switzerland
Until now, my enduring memory of the Falklands War was of a car park in Washington DC. My father was serving in our Embassy there at the time. Later it was claimed that the US simply handed key military components over to us in the Embassy’s car park, so urgent was the cause, so deep […]
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23rd November 2016
Geneva, Switzerland
To appreciate the paradox of globalisation, consider this: – The first of the UN’s eight Millennium Development Goals was to halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income was less than $1.25 a day. This target was met five years early. Over half those lifted out of extreme poverty during this period, […]
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7th November 2016
Geneva, Switzerland
So what do the elections to the UN’s Human Rights Council tell us about the state of human rights in the world today? The elections took place ten days ago. There are 47 members of the HRC, and each has a three year term. A third of the membership is elected each year. All the […]
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18th October 2016
Geneva, Switzerland
Violent extremism is of course nothing new, but today we are confronted by the rapid growth of a particular form of it which is linked by its perpetrators to the tenets of one of the world’s great religions, Islam. It is worth just pausing for a moment to consider that violent extremism is not new, […]
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3rd October 2016
Geneva, Switzerland
What will be different after this Human Rights Council? Does any of it matter? Isn’t it just diplomats fighting over words? These are questions I sometimes get asked. I can understand the despair at the sight of capable female Russian diplomats gutting a resolution upholding women’s reproductive rights, something we saw at this last session. […]
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19th September 2016
Geneva, Switzerland
Every year leaders gather in New York for the world’s only truly global summit: the ministerial week of the General Assembly of the United Nations. UNGA week is a whirlwind of set-piece speeches, side events, motorcades, tirades, and diplomacy. Some of the great moments in international politics have taken place against the gilded backdrop of […]
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6th September 2016
Geneva, Switzerland
Every year the Human Rights Council organises a retreat. Making the Council more effective is a favourite topic, and was so again last week in Evian. Many argue that the Human Rights Council is a victim of its own success. Never have its sessions had more resolutions, panels and side events. The Director General of […]
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26th July 2016
Geneva, Switzerland
Some have asked whether Britain’s decision to leave the EU will affect the World Trade Organisation. And the answer is that, in perhaps the most important respect, nothing will change. Britain helped found the WTO, has been a leading supporter while in the EU, and is set to remain one of its leading supporters when […]
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11th July 2016
Geneva, Switzerland
As Britain’s ambassador in Geneva I have often been asked in recent days about developments in the UK. There has been much uncertainty and some anxiety. I have sought to explain, but also to reassure. On 23 June the British people voted in a referendum to leave the European Union. It is clear that some […]
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