The MDGs have been useful in moving human rights and development discourse together and in highlighting the need for greater accountability at all levels.

The corporate sector per se is bottom-line oriented. It can be very corrupt and it is not very principled. That is why I don't think it is sufficient just to have voluntary codes of behavior. I am in favor of legislation which helps to ensure that there is an even playing field and rewards those who play by the rules.

I have a sense that South Africa is my other country apart from my native country that I particularly love, [that I] want to see succeed, and I did really want my message to be listened to.

In human rights theory it is very important that governments still have the primary responsibility for the standards and provision of such services even if they no longer deliver them. They must insist that the private sector delivers without discrimination. So governments still have responsibility, including the need to influence business.

The United Nations is actually a mid-20th century institution and much weaker than it was when it was originally created, because governments themselves are less capable of implementing the kind of promises or programs that they have put forward.

Thanks to the European Union, Ireland has a much more open climate of discussion and debate, as you can see in the media. It means that we are a more questioning society, perhaps more honestly prepared to address serious issues and problems, more open to the idea that different viewpoints should be heard and respected.

The term 'human rights' has been too often associated with conditionality, and with concerns of developing countries that in order to benefit from open trade they would be required to implement immediately labour and environmental standards of a comparable level to those applied in industrialised countries. At the same time, debates about the primacy of trade as against human rights legal codes have contributed to maintaining the unfortunate impression that the two bodies of law are pursuing incompatible aims.