Tag: un

23rd September 2019 Geneva, Switzerland

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by Bob Last

Head, UK Mission Political and Human Rights Team

Badly Opened Boxes

There are different ways to open boxes of breakfast cereal. When my wife does it, the box looks like it’s been magically opened by a graceful spell – the packaging remains in pristine condition and the re-sealable cardboard tag slides effortlessly into its allotted place. Whenever I do it, it looks like a pack of […]

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16th September 2019 Geneva, Switzerland

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by Aidan Liddle

UK Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament

Disarmament blog: the Conference on Disarmament in 2019

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) adopted its Annual Report to the UN General Assembly last week. Thanks to the skilful work of the sixth and final President for the year, Zimbabwean Ambassador Taonga Mushayavanhu, this was a quicker and much less fractious process than many of us were expecting. With that, a week ahead of […]

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14th June 2019 Brazil

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by Vijay Rangarajan

British Ambassador to Brazil

A Venezuelan exodus

Recently, I visited refugee camps on the Brazil-Venezuela border, talking to those who have escaped Venezuela. The main crossing point is a small Brazilian town called Pacaraima, at the very northern-most tip of the country, in the smallest, poorest Brazilian state of Roraima. A city of 12,000 inhabitants receives between 500 to 1,000 migrants a […]

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29th April 2019 Geneva, Switzerland

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by Aidan Liddle

UK Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the Conference on Disarmament

Disarmament blog: preparing for the NPT Review Conference

The third session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons opens today at UN Headquarters in New York. (Otherwise known as the NPT RevCon PrepCom; while we work tirelessly against the proliferation of nuclear weapons, we’re quite happy to proliferate jargon.) Over the next […]

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2nd October 2018 Geneva, Switzerland

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by Bob Last

Head, UK Mission Political and Human Rights Team

Growing Up

When the US walked out of the Council last session, there were plenty of doom-mongers foretelling the multiple ways in which everything would fall apart, drawing on the Council’s darker moments of its stuttering early years, before the US joined. There may be more testing times ahead, but this was the Council’s most successful session […]

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24th September 2018 Geneva, Switzerland

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by Bob Last

Head, UK Mission Political and Human Rights Team

Growing Awkward

I’ve often thought that children make the best negotiators. Kids seem to know better than anyone how to stay focussed on what they want and strike home when defences are down. If you ever need a lesson for succeeding in a multilateral negotiation, I’d recommend spending some time observing supermarket check-out queues on a Saturday […]

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17th September 2018 Geneva, Switzerland

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by Bob Last

Head, UK Mission Political and Human Rights Team

Growing Intolerant

Over the summer, I have grown a little bit more intolerant. Not to family holidays, heatwaves or even World Cup exits, but to all things dairy. In many countries, this wouldn’t be especially problematic, but in Switzerland, I am having to rethink my breakfast, lunch and dinner as well as my usual Council mood-enhancer – […]

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10th July 2018 Geneva, Switzerland

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by Bob Last

Head, UK Mission Political and Human Rights Team

World Cup Council

There’s little point writing about anything not related to football at the moment and I wouldn’t expect anyone to give it much attention if I did. By a happy coincidence, plenty of the countries who qualified for the World Cup finals were busy at the Human Rights Council too. I’m happy to report that we […]

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25th June 2018 Geneva, Switzerland

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by Bob Last

Head, UK Mission Political and Human Rights Team

Keeping the light on

My Council session got off to an unfortunate and slightly messy start. As I rushed to leave the house I discovered that the cat had regurgitated something unpleasant inside my freshly polished work shoes. I’m not prone to superstition but it felt like a worrying omen for what lay ahead. And so it proved to be. […]

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29th March 2018 Geneva, Switzerland

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by Bob Last

Head, UK Mission Political and Human Rights Team

Unruly Behaviour

Voting days at the Council have always been stressful, and things don’t seem to be getting any easier with age. The drawback of having been around in these parts for longer than most is that I’m expected to know what I’m doing, especially when it comes to the finer points of the UN’s rules of […]

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