simon zadek

Normally I resist telling ‘back stories’, but this one seemed unmissable.

Sitting on a plane in Geneva en route to Johannesburg (via London), I found myself next to a member of the UN Human Rights Council who had just left an on-going meeting. I asked politely, with nothing but concern and interest in mind, whether the situation in Libya had come up in discussion. It was discussed informally, the person replied fairly unresponsively. I probed a little further in asking her if the Human Rights Council was advising the UN Security Council about whether a ‘no fly zone’ would advance human rights or not in Libya. The person looked puzzled, and paused for a second before replying that the topic was not really a matter of human rights.

I gaped in silence, politely of course.

The person reflected again for a moment before adding reflectively, “well perhaps it does, now that I think of it”.