21st March 2016 Geneva, Switzerland
Sorry for last week’s silence. A bout of family flu and some absent colleagues kept me busier than usual but thankfully everyone’s fine again. The middle two weeks of the Council session have been typically frantic with everyone trying to work out the version of their resolutions to table which they hope will attract the […]
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 […]
1st March 2016 Geneva, Switzerland
Welcome back. I hope you’ve been having a good 2016. By this stage of the year most people’s well intentioned New Year’s resolutions have fallen by the wayside as the demands of winter force us towards the comforting embrace of familiar habits. I spend too much of my working life working on resolutions at the […]
26th February 2016
In May this year, the first World Humanitarian Summit will be held in Istanbul. The United Kingdom sees this as a real opportunity to take stock of how humanitarian aid around the world is distributed, and to improve the effectiveness of delivery to ensure that aid reaches those most in need. Humanitarian aid needs to […]
23rd February 2016 Geneva, Switzerland
Like all governments and international organisations, the UN sometimes gets a bad press. Recently the UN faced critical headlines following the release of an opinion by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that Julian Assange was being arbitrarily detained in the UK. Now, the decision to conclude that someone who is evading Swedish justice by […]
Read more on The UN’s Role On Human Rights Is About More Than Julian Assange | Reply
8th February 2016 Geneva, Switzerland
Last week’s conference in London did not solve the Syrian refugee crisis. That requires an end to the conflict. The suspension of the peace talks in Geneva last week shows we’re not even at the end of the beginning of that process, as Churchill might have said. But London did some important things. It raised […]
11th December 2015 Paris, France
This time last week we were at the start of COP21. The conference centre was smelling of woodchip (you can really tell how hard France have worked at making COP21 sustainable), there were still freebies being handed out, delegates were relatively smiley and positive (directly proportional to the quality/quantity of freebies and coffee, I have […]
Read more on COP21: the best things come to those who wait | Reply
23rd November 2015 Vancouver, Canada
You may remember the 1970s and ‘80s like they were yesterday. Or perhaps they seem like ancient history, an era long before you were born. It was a time of Punk and New Romantics, the Marlboro man and heavy glass ash trays, big hair and bad cars (or bad hair and big cars). Vehicles drank […]
Read more on Climate 2050 – Why Paris is the Next Beginning | Reply (1)
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 […]
16th September 2015 Geneva, Switzerland
I hope you had a good break. Those wise enough to spend their holidays in or around these parts will be coming back to the Council re-energised from the unusually long hot summer we’ve had this year. To my family’s bemusement, I opted to spend our holidays caravanning in the slightly more inclement weather which […]