4th July 2013
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Trafficking in human beings – for forced labour, for sex, for their organs – has been with us as long as one human has exploited another. That is no reason why we should resign ourselves to its existence in the 21st century. The British government sees tackling modern slavery as an important global priority. And yet, […]
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28th October 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
25 years to the day that Pope John Paul II hosted an unprecedented gathering of world religious leaders in Assisi to pray for world peace, Pope Benedict XVI on 27 October hosted, in the same place, his own “Day of Reflection, Dialogue and Prayer for Peace and Justice in the World”. Again, leaders of the […]
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13th October 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
There was encouraging news yesterday, with 200 political prisoners released in Burma. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said: “I welcome the news that a number of political prisoners have been released. … We look forward to the hopes for genuine change coming to fruition, and to seeing news of further releases and progress on other […]
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10th October 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
Today is the 9th World Day against the Death Penalty. It is the longstanding policy of the UK to oppose the death penalty in all circumstances as a matter of principle. However the death penalty is not prohibited by international law and 58 countries in the world retain it – that is 58 too many. […]
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3rd October 2011
Geneva, Switzerland
As the September session of the Human Rights Council drew to a close on Friday, there were some glum faces around, especially amongst the NGOs. The NGOs provide a much needed reality check to the rest of us and I think it’s a fair criticism that civil servants are often all too ready to point […]
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26th September 2011
Geneva, Switzerland
The second week of the September Human Rights Council session was a typically frantic affair, as delegations scrambled to finalise the resolutions that they would present before Thursday’s deadline. Getting resolutions in tends to be a quite scrappy business, more like a school sports day three-legged race than a gracious Olympic sprint. Countries have quite […]
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19th September 2011
Geneva, Switzerland
It’s been a tiring week. The Council has been busy enough but it hasn’t helped that our 6-month old seems to have lost the knack of sleeping at night for more than about 30 minutes at a time. My own dad, over from the UK, sees this as his own private revenge for the years […]
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12th September 2011
Geneva, Switzerland
I’ve never liked this time of year. It always invokes my childhood dread of going back to school without having done any of my homework for the summer holidays. Each year I promised myself I’d change and be more organised the following summer. But I never was. On Monday the Human Rights Council begins its […]
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12th August 2011
This post was published when the author was in a previous role
British Sea Power are on stage with some fir trees – not sure where they fit in, but that’s probably my ignorance. Earlier on we visited the Head of the new Tom Lantos Institute in Budapest (he was a Holocaust survivor and US Congressman and the Institute was launched by his family a few weeks […]
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5th July 2011
Geneva, Switzerland
The Human Rights Council broke new ground this week and I ended up rather in the thick of it. On Tuesday, as part of the UK’s decision to do everything it can to hold the Gaddafi regime to account, the team in Geneva went after the 16 signatures needed from Human Rights Council members to […]
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