25th April 2024
Reflect & Remember: Anzac Day 2024
Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office Blogs
A unique insight into UK foreign and development policy
23rd April 2024
Good English – A Key to Panama’s Future Success
21st March 2024
Forests in focus on International Day of Forests
17th June 2022
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Tough times, good people
This week I finish my time as UK Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina. It has been a remarkable privilege to represent my country here. It has been the most challenging, frustrating, enriching and rewarding experience of my professional life. As a diplomat, you can never draw a clear line between professional and personal life. My […]
16th June 2022 Stockholm, Sweden
Bridging the behavioural science-policy gap for a net-zero society
Meeting our net-zero targets will require greater public engagement and a significant shift in behaviour, including rapid and widespread adoption of new low-carbon technology and a considerable reduction in the consumption of carbon-intensive commodities and services. This message was clear from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report, as all of the different […]
Read more on Bridging the behavioural science-policy gap for a net-zero society | Reply
6th June 2022 Belgrade, Serbia
Russia’s war in words and numbers
What is happening in Ukraine can be no less shocking to people in Serbia than to people in Canada, Norway, Poland, the UK – or anywhere else including Russia, when and where the truth is known. Deliberate disinformation has been rife and multifaceted – from mundane lies (no intention of invading Ukraine) to fantasy fiction […]
2nd June 2022 Geneva, Switzerland
Disarmament: space and cluster munitions
May was a big month for 2 of the UK disarmament team’s main objectives for this year. On 9 May, the Open Ended Working Group on Space Threats got underway at last, holding the first of its substantive (as opposed to organisational) meetings. It felt like the culmination of a process we began back in […]
Read more on Disarmament: space and cluster munitions | Reply (2)
24th May 2022 Belgrade, Serbia
History revision
I am a diplomat not a historian. But as a diplomat you cannot escape or ignore history – and nor should you want to. It is desperately sad to see a country with a rich heritage being trapped by a re-imagined history rather than addressing present needs and future opportunities. Chatting over dinner about 15 […]
23rd May 2022
Twenty five years of the Chemical Weapons Convention
Sarah Price has been Head of the UK Government’s Counter-Proliferation & Arms Control Centre since 2018. Between 2013 and 2017, she was British Ambassador to Finland. I first encountered the CWC as deputy Ambassador in Belgrade in 2003 when I accompanied UK experts to bilateral discussions on (then) Serbia & Montenegro’s CWC Declaration. I was […]
Read more on Twenty five years of the Chemical Weapons Convention | Reply
23rd May 2022
The Chemical Weapons Convention was a long time in the making
Dr John R Walker worked in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Arms Control and Disarmament Research Unit from March 1985 until May 2020. He served as its head from 2014 to 2020. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and the European Leadership Network, and a Senior Research Fellow […]
Read more on The Chemical Weapons Convention was a long time in the making | Reply
19th May 2022
Twenty five years of the Chemical Weapons Convention
Paul Arkwright is an independent business consultant and former diplomat. He was British High Commissioner to Nigeria between 2015 and 2018, and British Ambassador to the Netherlands and Permanent Representative to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) between 2009 and 2013. In 2011, he chaired the Sixteenth Session of the OPCW Conference […]
Read more on Twenty five years of the Chemical Weapons Convention | Reply
13th May 2022
The road ahead for the Chemical Weapons Convention: disarmament, diversity and equality
Dr Renata H Dalaqua is a Political Scientist and Head of the Gender and Disarmament Programme at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR). Previously, she was the Deputy Director of Projects at the Brazilian Center for International Relations (CEBRI) and a Consultant with VERTIC’s National Implementation Measures programme. Since its entry into force, […]
Read more on The road ahead for the Chemical Weapons Convention: disarmament, diversity and equality | Reply
11th May 2022
Science and the Chemical Weapons Convention
Dr Christopher Timperley is the Principal Advisor on Arms Control and Non-Proliferation at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl). He was the first UK scientist to be elected to the chair of the OPCW Scientific Advisory Board. He was appointed an OBE by Her Majesty the Queen in 2021 for his services to defence […]
Read more on Science and the Chemical Weapons Convention | Reply