2nd October 2017 Geneva, Switzerland
Council sessions leave your head spinning. Anyone who gets through one without feeling like it was full body and soul experience wasn’t really there. And it’s particularly trying for the families we abandon to meet the Council’s callous workload. If, like me, you’re lucky enough to have an understanding partner, for the first few days […]
25th September 2017 Geneva, Switzerland
Leaving aside the extremely grim subject matter which forms the basis of our work, one of the things I like the least in my job is having to say goodbye to good people. This summer we bade farewell to another great set of colleagues including the UK’s own James Mclaughlin and the ever wonderful, and […]
11th September 2017 Geneva, Switzerland
It’s been a summer of car-related mishaps. The Swiss do many things well, though they must be among the best in the world when it comes to handing out speeding fines. I managed to pick up two tickets for going 1km and 2 km an hour over the limit and to add insult to injury, […]
5th October 2016 Geneva, Switzerland
The physical experience of going through a Council session feels rather like having your head banged against a wall. It’s nice when it stops, but otherwise not particularly enjoyable. So there was a sense of delirium in the air when we headed out of the doors at a reasonable time last Friday evening. Three weeks […]
26th September 2016 Geneva, Switzerland
I’ve been having a spooky session. For the past fortnight people who left the Council many moons ago have been popping up all over the place as though they never left. Former colleagues do of course come back from time to time but it’s been happening so much recently I’m starting to wonder if I’m […]
19th September 2016 Geneva, Switzerland
I’m afraid I have to begin on a very sad note as our friend and colleague Ebenezer Appreku, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Ghana, passed away just before the session. He was a wonderful man and a strong human rights advocate. I often heard him speak about how critical attention by the UN had helped […]
7th March 2016 Geneva, Switzerland
Aftershave. Make-up. Back hair. At some point during our adolescence we realise that less is usually more and adjust our personal grooming behaviour accordingly. Despite my awkward formative years, even I managed to understand that aftershave was not to be applied by the bottle (though I never worried much about my make-up). The Council turns […]
5th October 2015 Geneva, Switzerland
Just before the session began, someone told me about Mike the chicken who somehow managed to survive for 18 months despite being headless. There’s been more than a few times over the last year and a half when I’ve known how he felt. The demands of trying to work with a young family and badly […]
28th September 2015 Geneva, Switzerland
However it happens, giving birth to a resolution at the UN is always difficult. In olden times, when the Human Rights Council was but a twinkle in the eye of former Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the process remained unchanged down the generations. Drafts were put together in foetal form by aspiring parent delegations, and then discussed […]