Sian MacLeod

Sian MacLeod

UK Ambassador to Serbia

Part of UK at the OSCE

28th September 2015

Postcard from Warsaw: A Very Human Dimension

Postcard from Warsaw:
Since I first saw a local Polish emigre folk dance group as a child, Poland has held great sense of romance for me.  More recently, cycling and skiing along mountain border paths through fairy tale forests added to the magic.  Warsaw though has always been for me a city of buildings. Buildings stretching along broad avenues as far as the eye can see.

But a visit to Warsaw this week for me was all about people.  Multilateral diplomacy may sometimes appear to be concerned primarily with paper: declarations, reports, resolutions, treaties, memoranda and so on. Such documents can be important, but only have sense and meaning if we keep in sight the human realities underlying the words.

The annual Warsaw Human Dimension conference, HDIM, does just this, bringing under one roof diplomats, NGOs and experts from the 57 OSCE states.

The Human Dimension is the ‘third basket’ of issues of the comprehensive security and cooperation remit of the OSCE. In it we address the fundamental rights and freedoms that are essential building blocks of healthy societies and the international rules based order,  guided by the1975 Helsinki Declaration – perhaps one of the most important diplomatic papers of our age.

I took part in discussions on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.  I met experts on minorities, media freedom, Roma and Sinti issues, democratic elections.  My apprehension at discussion of the abstract sounding ‘gender issues’ was misplaced:  inspiring women tackling serious, real life problems common to our region and beyond found more common ground than cause for confrontation.

Confrontation was a feature of discussion of rights that some within our region sadly interpret as a threat.  But the verbal confrontation has a place and purpose too. It would be wrong of the OSCE to fight shy of difficult or divisive issues. The Russian Federation will again go away in no doubt of the strength of condemnation of its illegal annexation of Crimea, its illegal detention of Ukrainian citizens or its increasing domestic restrictions on civil society.  A dignified silent protest highlighted detention of human rights defenders in Azerbaijan.

There is so much potential in this forum that we could harness with determination and political will and in concert with the OSCE’s dedicated three institutions (Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, High Commissioner on National Minorities, and Representative on Freedom of the Media).  I hope that we can continue to build on this foundation and exploit the full promise of this force for positive change.

For now one thing is certain.  In Warsaw the conference lobby will be filled from dawn to long beyond dusk with the babble of human chatter, giving diplomacy a very human dimension indeed.

Image credit: Andrew Peebles

About Sian MacLeod

Sian Macleod was appointed Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Republic of Serbia in September 2019. Prior to this, Sian was Ambassador and Head of the UK Delegation to the Organization…

Sian Macleod was appointed Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the Republic of Serbia in September 2019. Prior to this, Sian was Ambassador and Head of the UK Delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Sian joined the FCO in 1986. Her first posting was to Moscow. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, she served briefly in the Embassy in Vilnius. Since then she has been posted to The Hague, returned to Moscow 2004-7, where she became Minister (Deputy Head of Mission). Between overseas postings she has worked in the FCO and the Cabinet Office.

Sian was Ambassador in Prague from 2009 to 2013 and then Director of the British Council Triennial Review and FCO Additional Director for the Eastern European & Central Asian Directorate.

Sian is married to Richard Robinson and they have three children and enjoy music, cycling and cross-country skiing.

Before joining the FCO she studied music at the Winchester School of Art and the Royal Academy of Music.