Mrs Mary Robinson isn't the first Irish leader to walk the streets of Geneva in search of world peace. Eamon de Valera came here in the 1930s, feeling his way in winter fog to the Palais Wilson, then headquarters of the League of Nations.

As head of the League of Nations, de Valera spent several fruitless years trying to resolve conflicts between the European powers. The collapse of the League was followed quickly by the outbreak of the second World War and some of the worst human rights atrocities seen in the history of mankind.

The Palais Wilson, a formidable pile of 19th-century grand-hotel architecture on the shores of Lake Geneva, slowly went to rack and ruin, a fading reminder of failed hopes.

"Never again" was the unanimous cry of the victorious powers after the war. The United Nations was established, and a Universal Declaration on Human Rights was drawn up.

Almost 50 years on, the UN is still lumbering on, bureaucratic, ineffective, often sidelined by the major powers. World war has been avoided but human rights violations are as prevalent as ever.

Now Mary Robinson has been drafted in to continue an Irish tradition started by de Valera. Early next year, Robinson and her staff at the UN High Commission for Human Rights will move into the selfsame Palais Wilson, which is currently being renovated specially for UNHCHR. The Swiss government is footing the bill, expected to exceed £40 million.

Robinson's appointment has galvanised the UN in both Geneva and New York. Never before has a head of state, or anyone with such high credentials, taken up such a senior UN position.

Within the organisation, she is regarded as the unofficial second-in-command to the secretary-general, Kofi Annan. Robinson is the only head of a UN agency to sit on the four main executive committees. She is also a member of the elite senior management group, and has spent as much time so far in UN headquarters in New York as in Geneva.

The former president has made waves in other ways. Her comment that the UN had "lost the plot" caused raised eyebrows among her staff in Geneva, according to one source.

A journalist puts it more bluntly. "They hit the roof. These people are career cowards. They've made a life out of running away from difficult situations. And now they're being challenged to make a stand."

A harsh judgment. But the UN has sometimes been ineffectual, and UNHCHR was invariably so since it was set up five years ago. But staff work hard and those in the field take incredible risks. The killing of five human rights monitors in Rwanda last February is a reminder of these risks.

Back in headquarters in Geneva, though, it's easy to get the impression that the paperwork and the committees, instead of being a means to an end, have become the end itself.

At the main UN site in Geneva, the Palais de Nations, you can walk for miles through seemingly endless corridors. The site is a world unto itself, with its own laundries, doctors, travel agents and shops.

Everyone works behind closed doors, preserving their individual fiefdoms in a building whose 1930s Stalinist architecture speaks of overweening bureaucracy.

The real world - of sorts - starts outside the security barriers. Here, one or other of the world's dispossessed or aggrieved are usually to be found demonstrating. This week it was turn of the Iraqis; next week marks international day of solidarity with the Palestinians.

Sensibly, Robinson has started with internal housekeeping. The move to the Palais Wilson will give UNHCHR brand identity: the hope is that the Palais will be to human rights what, say, the Eiffel tower is to Paris.

Senior vacancies are being re-advertised in the hope that they will be taken up by the developing countries. Robinson tore up an existing short-list which was dominated by applicants from the West.

Her principal adviser, Bride Rosney, is staying on until the summer to ease the transition: she originally intended to stay only a few months.

Robinson tends to start her day around 8.30 a.m., an hour earlier than most UN staff, and takes her work home with her around 7 p.m. Her husband, Nick, is working on another book, while her son, Aubrey, has adjusted well to school in Geneva. Her first field trip, to Rwanda, starts next week.

UNHCHR employs about 200 staff in Geneva and a similar number in field operations in about a dozen human rights "hot spots". The annual budget is about £30 million, but almost half comes in voluntary contributions from Western governments, and is extremely vulnerable to cuts. Robinson has written to all governments looking for money but hasn't had any good news yet.

These days, Robinson aides are doing all they can to dampen expectations. There will be no quick fixes to the world's problems, no "finger-pointing" at the evildoers.

"Human rights is not about tactics, procedures, resolutions and mechanisms," says Robinson. "Human rights begin and end with a determination to secure a life of dignity - a truly human quality of life - for all the people in whose names we act."

Her stress on the importance of social, economic and cultural rights, and not just political rights, has irked conservative commentators. This is just the kind of talk that lets the bad guys off the hook, they claim.

Robinson has gone native, as only a Western representative depending on the support and co-operation of developing countries can. Her advisers claim Western media coverage of human rights issues is "unbalanced".

Consider China, which has locked up and tortured political dissenters and has occupied Tibet since 1959. In the same time, the number of Chinese living in absolute poverty has fallen by 200 million. In the Robinson view, China should be given credit for improving the lot of its people.

In a recent CNN interview, she was pressed on what she was going "to do about" China. She pointed out that two countries had failed to ratify the UN Convention on the rights of the child. One was Somalia, which hasn't had a functioning government for seven years. The other was the US.

Robinson has said she wants to be a "moral voice" for human rights, but can she also be a "moral force"? Article 2.7 of the UN Charter forbids interference in the internal affairs of countries, but this is where most abuses take place.

The High Commissioner can speak out. She can appoint special rapporteurs, draw up reports. And then what? Robinson's real contribution may lie in making the entire UN a more effective organisation, one that is taken more seriously by governments both large and small.

"It could be 15 or 20 years before we know she's made a difference," says one of her aides. And before we know whether the Palais Wilson is to be the scene of another heroic Irish failure.