Political hazards, staff tensions and conflicting views lie ahead

UN sources last night spoke of Mrs Robinson's new job as a political minefield, something of a poisoned chalice and a major challenge.

She takes over the relatively new and underdeveloped UN post at a time when human rights issues are intertwined with political problems throughout the world. To make matters worse, the UN department she will head has experienced deep factional divisions since its foundation.

First, the political minefield. "Look at Congo [formerly Zaire]", a UN source said last night. "The whole world is applauding because Kabila came to power. Yet there are reports of massacres and demands for a UN investigation.

"So what would she do? It's a political minefield. That's the kind of practical problem she would face."

The poisoned chalice reference arises from tensions that have ex-Rights - the organisation supervised by the High Commissioner - since the post of High Commissioner was established. The previous High Commissioner, Mr Jose Ayalo Lasso of Ecuador, and his deputy, Mr Ibrahim Fall of Senegal, did not get on, and according to sources within the organisation, had a very poor working relationship.

"The staff have not been well managed, according to the source. "Some are identified with different factions and they are spread out around the world. She will have to get some coherence into the organisation. It's not quite a poisoned chalice, but shall we say it's a less than ideal situation."

The challenge is more fundamental: how to set and manage a coherent international human rights agenda in the midst of deep divisions between developing and developed countries over what human rights actually are.

The post of High Commissioner for Human Rights was established by UN General Assembly resolution 48/141 of December 1993. From, its foundation, the post was the subject of tension between the competing views of human rights held by the western world on one side and developing and Asian countries on the other.

That conflict is between the western concentration on the rights of the individual to free speech, freedom from torture, fair trials and freedom of conscience, and the Asian and African emphasis on the rights of the community and the right to social and economic development.

The developing, countries resent what they see as developed western countries trying to interfere in their internal affairs under the guise of concern for human rights. The West, they say, adopts a confrontational and challenging style on such issues.

"The argument is between conversation and confrontation, between dialogue and lecturing", the source said. Earlier this year at the UN Centre for Human Rights, the Chinese government took a very robust line against western notions of human rights. That country's foreign minister suggested that the West's professed concern about human rights was in reality just a ruse to allow it to criticise and interfere in China's internal affairs.

This view is shared by many Asian and African states. But significantly, the UN Secretary General Mr Kofi Annan himself an African does not share this view. Announcing his nomination of Mrs Robinson yesterday, he said he believed he was making perhaps the most important appointment of his term of office. He has regularly made clear his strong personal commitment to human rights.

Just last week in Harare - in his first major speech in a black African capital - he made an impassioned defence of individual human rights. What African mother, he asked, does not grieve when her child is killed by the police? Could Africa afford to have one of its brightest voices stilled, he asked, in a reference to Ken SaroWiwa's execution in Nigeria?

MR Annan will clearly be very supportive of efforts by Mrs Robinson to expand the role of her office. Now "tucked away in a back office in Geneva", according to a UN source, there is speculation that the body may move to the prestigious Palais Wilson building on the shores of Lake Geneva, the original home of the League of Nations.

Established in 1994, the office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has grown, rapidly. It now has 450 staff, 400 field projects throughout the world and a budget of £30 million.

The office had just 12 projects when Mr Ayalo Lasso - who left in March - took over in 1994. Its budget was then just £15 million, but Mr Ayalo Lasso doubled it to its present level through soliciting voluntary funding. This now accounts for half the budget, with the UN paying the rest.

The office has some 200 staff based in its Geneva headquarters, and 250 in the field. It has human rights monitoring operations in Rwanda, Burundi, Colombia, Georgia and elsewhere.

The UN resolution establishing the post of High Commissioner lists as specific priorities:

"To promote and protect the effective enjoyment by all of civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights, including the right to development; to provide advisory services, technical and financial assistance in the field of human rights to States that request them; to co ordinate United Nations education and public information programmes in the field of human rights; to play an active role in removing the full obstacles to the full realisation of human rights and in preventing the continuation of human rights violations throughout the world; to engage in a dialogue with governments in order to secure respect for human rights; to enhance international cow operation for the promotion and protection of human rights, to coordinate human rights promotion and protection activities throughout the United Nations system; to rationalise adapt strengthen and streamline the United Nations machinery in the field of human, rights in order to improve its efficiency and effectiveness."

It's a long list which could be acted upon in a passive, cautious way, or could be used to develop an extremely robust, active and dynamic UN body. Mrs Robinson has a track record of doing things with underdeveloped posts.