Back on the blog

Greetings. After a long hiatus, I'm resurrecting this blog.

So, what's changed? Well, I have: travelled a fair bit (Nepal, India, Singapore, Australia, Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, USA); lived in Buenos Aires where I learnt Spanish*, soaked up the city and ate a lot of steak; become vegetarian; attended a few weddings; moved to Geneva and adjusted to 5 days per week in an office again.

Blogging again is one happy side-effect of more time sat at a desk. As I'm working on human rights full-time now, there will continue to be an emphasis in that direction in my posts. So, to kick things off, and in acknowledgement of the fact that another big change during my radio silence is a new UK government, there's this. The UN General Assembly declared access to clean water and sanitation to be human rights last week, against fierce oppposition from the UK; a notable change in tack, as Labour minister Hilary Benn was happy to acknowledge the right to water back in 2006. I'm concerned and slightly mystified by this development.

Although I never wanted to see David Cameron walk into Number 10, I'll admit to thinking that the coalition government has done a reasonable job so far, all things considered, but its stance on human rights (see here and Conor Gearty here) and sustainable development (for example, shutting down the Sustainable Development Commission, claiming that SD has been 'mainstreamed' into government policy - see Jonathan Porritt on this here) I do find troubling.

*Mostly just as a challenge to myself, at some point I aim to start translating these posts into Spanish. Watch this space for an URL if you're interested, and feel free to whip out the red biro...