Never renowned as a team player, Mary Robinson must have found the bureaucracy at the United Nations particularly stifling. Old UN hands speak of the frustration of trying to make a senior appointment to your staff which can take a year to complete.
The office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights receives less than 2 per cent of the UN budget, which is not considered sufficient for its very wide range of responsibilities.
Her announcement caused surprise in political and diplomatic circles. There had been no obvious attempt to undermine her and no apparent opposition to giving her a second term in the post. This despite the fact that it was part of her job to ruffle the feathers and step on the toes of governments around the world by pointing out the flaws and failings in their performance on human rights.
There was less surprise among well-informed human rights activists, who spoke understandingly of the difficulties Mrs Robinson faced in trying to promote the cause of human rights on a starvation budget, with members of her staff working in dangerous jobs in the field on insecure, short-term contracts of three to six months.
They felt the role of an independent human rights advocate free of the constraints imposed by a high-level UN post would suit her better. Judging from the available evidence, therefore, Mrs Robinson was not pushed out, although the trickle of funding was hardly an encouragement to stay.
She is expected to move on to some as yet unspecified role in the broad human rights sphere. The UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, appeared to hint at this when he predicted yesterday: "She will continue to make a valuable contribution to the promotion of human rights in the community of all nations."
Already there is speculation that the former president may reemerge in some high-profile position with a non-governmental organisation or foundation, or possibly as an activist academic. It is generally accepted that we have not heard the last of her and she will continue to be what she herself calls "an awkward voice" on human rights issues.
She will certainly go out on a high note since she is a prime mo ver behind the world conference on racism scheduled for Durban, South Africa, from August 31st to September 7th. She has laid considerable emphasis during her term of office on the need to acknowledge that human rights are not confined to the civil and political spheres but apply also to economic and social life.
The post of High Commissioner for Human Rights was established by the UN General Assembly in 1993. The High Commissioner is the official with principal responsibility for the human rights activities of the UN and is charged with promoting and protecting civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.
Mrs Robinson works out of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights which is based in Geneva and was formerly known as the UN Centre for Human Rights. Operating with a staff of about 200, the many activities of the OHCHR include providing support for fact-finding bodies which are looking into alleged violations of human rights around the world.
Her wide brief was exemplified in a frank interview she gave to RTE's Charlie Bird yesterday, when she criticised what she clearly saw as the narrow US conception of human rights as mainly civil and political but went on to name Cuba, Libya and Iraq as countries which were "very hostile" to human rights.
She pointed out that "very fine language" was used by all governments in relation to human rights, e.g., at last September's Millennium Summit of the UN in New York, but along with this there was what she called a "determination" not to resource the human rights budget.
"I'm not an inherent bureaucrat myself," she said. Her mandate had recently been widened even further without additional funding. She clearly feels at this stage that she can achieve more outside the UN bureaucracy and stressed that she was not "frustrated in a negative sense" but would continue to be a voice for the victims of abuses and stand up to the many bullies still on the scene.
Mr Annan paid tribute in New York to her work in developing the job from the "embryo" she took over in 1997. Speculation suggests that her successor may be an Eastern European as this sector has received relatively few high-profile UN positions.
Like an international traffic warden, Mrs Robinson's dilemma was that she could only do her job properly by annoying some, if not all, of her employers. She spoke yesterday of her role in highlighting the activities of the Russian government in Chechnya as well as her criticisms of China. "Each time you speak out with an awkward voice, you pay a certain price for that."
She describes her role as "pushing out the frontiers" of human rights.
Pioneers are rarely noted for their diplomatic skills and bureaucratic politics are usually not their forte; Kofi Annan has the benefit of years of experience in the UN system and seems to have mastered the difficult art of working as an international peacemaker without unduly upsetting the superpowers who dominate the Security Council.
Friends say she still has not made her mind up on what she will do next but is "adamant" it will be in the sphere of human rights. At least she will not have the added burden of fund-raising, which is a major part of her present job, contributing to what sources describe as a "relentless" and "draining" workload.
As president, she was invariably accompanied by her husband, Nick, who provided much-needed support and back-up, but the UN culture does not usually include spouses in the travel arrangements. "She would be in Somalia and he would be in Geneva," said one observer.
Support at the end of a telephone, however valuable and welcome, is not as good as support in the field.
Can tyrants and despots, bullies and fanatical ideologues sleep easier at night now that she is giving up her UN role? The answer, both from herself and those who know her, is decidedly in the negative: you don't get rid of Mary Robinson that easily.