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Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

Part of UK in Australia

3rd December 2014

Successful Australian UNSC Presidency in November

Australia has just completed its second period as UN Security Council Presidency, in November. It’s up to each member how much they want to make of their month of rotating Presidency. So it was good to see Australia being both ambitious and effective. It enabled strategic consideration of some important thematic issues, alongside dealing with regular Council business and responding to external developments.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop

Australia’s programme included:

  • the contribution of policing to successful peacekeeping missions, an area the Council hadn’t paid enough attention to in the past;
  • the Council’s use of sanctions, which was overdue for a review and refresh; and
  • the growing threat to international security posed by foreign terrorist fighters, which needed further Council attention to build on the debate chaired by President Obama in September.

With two years of experience on the Security Council under its belt now, Australia was able to work well with other members to deliver genuine progress on these issues. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop travelled to New York to energetically chair three meetings. The debate Australia chaired with Heads of UN Police Components was a particularly  valuable innovation. Securing a unanimous welcome and accompanying resolution was an impressive feat.

My colleague Mark Lyall Grant, British Permanent Representative to the UN, described the latest Australian Presidency as “a fitting culmination to the energy, creativity and commitment that Australia has brought to Council proceedings over the last two years”. Australia stands down from the UNSC at the end of this month. As a permanent UNSC member and a very close partner of Australia, Britain hopes we won’t have to wait another 30 years to see Australia back on the Council again.

About Paul Madden

Paul Madden has been the British Ambassador to Japan from January 2017. He was Additional Director for Asia Pacific at the FCO in 2015.He was British High Commissioner to Australia…

Paul Madden has been the British Ambassador to Japan from January 2017.

He was Additional Director for Asia Pacific at the FCO in 2015.He was British High Commissioner to Australia until February 2015. Prior to this he was British High Commissioner in Singapore from 2007-2011.

A career diplomat, he was previously Managing Director at UK Trade and Investment (2004-2006), responsible for co-ordinating and
implementing international trade development strategies to support
companies across a wide range of business sectors.

As Assistant Director of Information at the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office (2003-2004) he was responsible for public diplomacy policy,
including managing the FCO funding of the BBC World Service, the British
Council and the Chevening Scholarships programme. He led the team
responsible for the award-winning UK pavilion at the Aichi Expo in Japan
2005.

He was Deputy High Commissioner in Singapore from 2000-2003 and has
also served in Washington (1996-2000) and Tokyo (1988-92). Between
1992-96 he worked on EU enlargement and Environmental issues at the FCO
in London.

Before joining FCO he worked at the Department of Trade and Industry
(1980-87) on a range of industrial sectors and trade policy, including
two years as a minister’s Private Secretary.

He has an MA in Economic Geography from Cambridge University, an MBA
from Durham University, studied Japanese at London University’s School
of Oriental and African Studies, and is a Fellow of the Royal
Geographical Society. His first book, Raffles: Lessons in Business
Leadership, was published in 2003.

Married to Sarah, with three children, he was born in 1959, in Devon.

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