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Nigel Baker

Ambassador to the Holy See (2011-2016)

Part of UK in Bolivia

13th April 2011

Bolivia supports an end to cluster munitions

This week I want to congratulate Bolivia. On 8 April, the Chamber of Deputies of the Plurinational Assembly voted by unanimity to support the proposed law to ratify the Oslo Convention on Cluster Munitions.

The Oslo Convention is the most significant arms control agreement of recent years. It came into force on 1 August 2010 and obliges all States Parties to prohibit the manufacture, use, stockpile and transfer of cluster munitions. Many thousands of innocent men, women and children have been killed or maimed by these terrible weapons in conflicts across the globe. The world is a better place without such weapons.

The unanimous vote – not a common event in recent years in the Plurinational Assembly! – is a strong signal that Bolivia is living up to its pacifist calling. Bolivian delegates played an important part, alongside the United Kingdom and many other countries, in negotiating the Convention over several years of debate. The UK ratified the Oslo Convention last year, and is rapidly destroying the stockpiles of such munitions that it possessed. The vote in the Chamber of Deputies is one more important step towards universal adherence to this most humanitarian of causes.

About Nigel Baker

Nigel was British Ambassador to the Holy See from 2011-2016. He presented his Credentials to Pope Benedict XVI on 9 September 2011, after serving 8 years in Latin America, as…

Nigel was British Ambassador to the Holy See from 2011-2016. He presented his Credentials to Pope Benedict XVI on 9 September 2011, after serving 8 years in Latin America, as Deputy Head of Mission in the British Embassy in Havana, Cuba (2003-6) and then as British Ambassador in La Paz, Bolivia (2007-11). In July 2016, Nigel finished his posting, and is currently back in London.

As the first British Ambassador to the Holy See ever to have a blog, Nigel provided a regular window on what the Embassy and the Ambassador does. The blogs covered a wide range of issues, from Royal and Ministerial visits to Diplomacy and Faith, freedom of religion, human trafficking and climate change.

More on Nigel’s career

Nigel was based in London between 1998 and 2003. He spent two years on European Union issues (for the UK 1998 EU Presidency and on European Security and Defence questions), before crossing St James’s Park to work for three years as The Assistant Private Secretary to His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. At St James’s Palace, Nigel worked on international issues, including the management of The Prince of Wales’s overseas visits and tours, on the Commonwealth, interfaith issues, the arts and international development.

Nigel spent much of the early part of his FCO career in Central Europe, after an initial stint as Desk Officer for the Maghreb countries in the Near East and North Africa department (1990-91). Between 1992 and 1996, Nigel served in the British embassies in Prague and Bratislava, the latter being created in 1993 after the peaceful division of Czechoslovakia into the separate Czech and Slovak Republics.

Nigel joined the FCO (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) in September 1989. Between 1996 and 1998 he took a two year academic sabbatical to research and write about themes in 18th century European history, being based in Verona but also researching in Cambridge, Paris and Naples. The research followed from Nigel’s time as a student at Cambridge (1985-88) where he read history and was awarded a First Class Honours degree, followed by his MA in 1992.

Before joining the Foreign Office, Nigel worked briefly for the Conservative Research Department in London at the time of the 1989 European election campaign.

Nigel married Alexandra (Sasha) in 1997. They have one son, Benjamin, born in Bolivia in September 2008.

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