As I travel around the world, people think the only place where there is potential conflict [over] water is the Middle East, but they are completely wrong. We have the problem all over the world.

Sometimes when you take a tough action against one side in the conflict, they see you as part of the conflict and they attack you.

Each crisis is different, has its own specificities, and we need to look at it critically; look at each one in its own terms.

The reality is that no group of countries has any grounds for complacency about its own human rights performance and no group of countries does itself justice by automatically slipping into the "victim" mode . . . .

The US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.

There was a time, with the Berlin Wall down, that [it looked as if] the UN finally could do what it was set up to do, the rivalry between the two camps would dissipate, and we could all co-operate. And then, of course, Iraq came and blew it all apart. These upheavals will always take place in the world, and the design and construct of the UN ideally should be such that it can deal with these upheavals, and possibly influence them, and survive and thrive, but it doesn't work out that way, because as an organisation we are so dependent on the same member states.

I think that in the West, many citizens, especially younger citizens, take their freedoms and institutions for granted and focus on their frustrations with their governments' inability to solve pressing problems.