MARY ROBINSON is perhaps best known outside Ireland as the first Irish president to travel to Britain, where she met the queen for tea at Buckingham Palace. But that is merely the high-water mark of a long and distinguished career as a public servant, as she recalls in her new memoir, “Everybody Matters”.

Born in 1944, Ms Robinson worked as a human-rights lawyer and was a senator in Ireland’s upper house in the 1970s and ’80s. She used her position to campaign against discriminatory clauses of the Irish constitution, fighting on behalf of women, who were effectively treated as second-class citizens; homosexuals, whose actions were deemed criminal; and for freer access to contraceptives, which could not be sold without prescription in Ireland until 1985. In 1990, she was elected Ireland’s first female president.

At the end of her term in 1997, Ms Robinson started a five-year period as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Her term proved to be a controversial one, particularly after 9/11, when Western leaders found themselves the brunt of her attacks. Ms Robinson openly criticised the Bush Administration, much to the chagrin of then secretary-general of the UN, Kofi Annan. In 2009 Barack Obama awarded Ms Robinson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour awarded by the United States.

Ms Robinson spoke to The Economist about speaking truth to power, working with Kofi Annan and the tough life of a UN High Commissioner.

You talk about reading Eleanor Roosevelt at an early age. What did you see in her worldview that inspired you?

In 1958, Eleanor Roosevelt made a famous speech on the tenth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. She said, “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home.” When I read this I had a lightbulb moment, and thought, I really want to be involved in this.

How important was your 1993 meeting with the queen for Anglo-Irish relations?

The invitation to take tea at Buckingham Palace with Queen Elizabeth II was huge at that time. Then, in 1996, I was invited back, this time on an official visit by the prime minister, John Major. My husband, Nick, and I had lunch with the Queen and Prince Edward. Before that, I inspected a guard of honour and the Irish national anthem was played. I remember as I stood on the steps of Buckingham Palace, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up, and saying to myself, I know this is a moment that matters for my country. 


Even though it was a couple of months after the actual killings, you could smell the blood and see it everywhere. You could see little children’s shoes in every building you went into. There was also a huge prison population, and I talked to a number of widows who had been raped. It was devastating. I was determined the following year, when I was invited by Ireland to represent the country at the 50th anniversary of the United Nations, that I would bring Rwanda to the table.

You had difficulty with the president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, at a later stage.

That was when I went back to Rwanda as UN High Commissioner in 1998. At that stage I thought, they know me. But when I arrived, I was a UN official and there was a coldness and distance because the UN had betrayed Rwanda and they were hurting.

I was caught up in that and didn’t fully appreciate the extent of it. But I was also getting briefed about what Rwanda was doing in the Democratic Republic of Congounderstandably trying to catch those who had been responsible for the genocide but subsequently killing civilians in the process. So I had to try and raise that issue at various levels.     

Did you regret the press conference you gave as UN High Commissioner that year, when you condemned the actions of the Rwandan government?

I sounded at the press conference like a Western person who was giving out to Rwanda, not like somebody who had been deeply supportive, sympathetic and engaged. That’s why when I was leaving Rwanda on that visit I was so upset with myself. I think I am regarded as someone who has had a lot of success in life and I want young people who are reading this book to know that there are going to be times when you are not going to be proud of what you did, but you go on.    

You had a difficult relationship with Kofi Annan while you worked at the UN.

At the beginning, Kofi Annan was very pleased to have me as his first high commissioner. But I soon found out that things were difficult in the role and there were various internal problems with the organisation and the office, which was new at the time.

I vented some of that frustration in a speech I gave at Oxford University in 1997. I was surprised when I received a call from Kofi Annan the following morning. He said, “Mary, you must not criticise the UN publicly. You owe me and the UN loyalty.”

I was thinking to myself, “But my speech was constructive criticism.” I started to realise afterwards: maybe some of Kofi Annan’s advisers didn’t like an assertive commissioner for human rights who was going to speak out against the United States, China and Russia, because he had to do business in the security council with these countries.

What are the difficulties faced by the UN High Commissioner, particularly in areas of conflict such as Israel and Palestine, where most people assume one must take sides?

You have to realise that human rights are not on either the Israeli or the Palestinian side. They are on both. Having said that, the occupation is a terrible denial of human rights. So it’s not equating a situation but it’s also respecting that settlers were being shot at and killed and were living in fear. I met these people and I tried very hard to be as fair as I could. The Palestinians were very pleased, perhaps over-pleased, which meant the Israeli side wasn’t.

