17th June 2013 Geneva, Switzerland
As the three-week session came to a close on Friday evening, delegates looked each other in the eye with weary emotion and asked how was it for you? The general mood seemed to be that it had been a good session but that the earth didn’t move. Getting through Council sessions is as much a […]
10th June 2013 Geneva, Switzerland
Week two of the June session is never much fun. The end is just a bit too far from sight, there’s a huge amount of fiddly sorting out still to do and almost everyone is in a ratty mood from having spent too much time together. Tempers tend to reach optimal fraying point at about […]
3rd June 2013 Geneva, Switzerland
I’m sure the June session of the Council never used to be this busy. In years gone by it felt less like a session in its own right and more like the after show party of the March session when delegations would run a few resolutions that they didn’t quite find the time for and […]
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27th May 2013 Geneva, Switzerland
There was a time not so long ago when the Geneva sun shone happily throughout spring time, when kinder colleagues used to mistake me for an intern and the June Human Rights Council session actually began in June. This year we’ve still not managed to put our winter clothes away, a worrying number of colleagues […]
25th March 2013 Geneva, Switzerland
The session is over, the resolutions are all adopted and UN blue smoke has finally risen through the holes in the Council ceiling. After weeks of lock down without food, daylight or other things that make us happy, the Council delegates can start to think about a return to normality. But for those afflicted by […]
4th March 2013 Geneva, Switzerland
It’s not often that you go to an event at the UN and end up staying much longer than intended. Usually it’s the other way round. But this week’s high level panel on the ‘power of empowered women’ was one of the best UN discussions I’ve seen and a fitting prelude to international women’s day […]
25th February 2013
London in February is a bit on the chilly side. But London is great to visit at any time of year. That’s why over one million Australians visit Britain every year, spending £1 billion. This amount has doubled over the past decade. A significant number are travelling to visit friends and relatives, but others are […]
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7th November 2012 Washington DC, USA
Sunday marks the ninety-fourth anniversary of the Armistice which ended the First World War. The guns on the Western Front finally fell silent at eleven o’clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918 after four years of fighting which had claimed the lives of sixteen million and maimed a further twenty million. […]
1st October 2012 Geneva, Switzerland
Human Rights Council sessions rarely end up being either a resounding success or an unmitigated disaster. They rather tend to be a mixed bag with some good things, some bad and a few which leave you scratching your head, wondering what it meant and why it happened in the first place. The September session was […]
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24th September 2012 Geneva, Switzerland
My second week of the Council session got off to a particularly bad start as I managed to put my back out while playing with my son at the weekend. My boss Ian cheerfully put it down to age catching up with me. I like to think I’ve a few good years left in me […]