I believe we should try to move away from the vocabulary and attitudes which shape the stereotyping of developed and developing country approaches to human rights issues. We are collective custodians of universal human rights standards, and any sense that we fall into camps of "accuser" and "accused" is absolutely corrosive of our joint purposes. 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.

If we want to make progress in key areas now, we have to build a multi-stakeholder process, harnessing the appropriate energies. So not only the politicians but also business, the wider civil society, and the trade union movement all have a contribution to make, whether it is at national or at international level.

Ireland is not in a good place at the moment. We have our own humiliation of losing our economic sovereignty, and we're now regaining it slowly and painfully.

Human rights are inscribed in the hearts of people; they were there long before lawmakers drafted their first proclamation.

Particularly here in the United States there is a lack of comprehension about anything to do with the United Nations.

Maybe this society, if anything, has become more patriarchal, and that has to be combated.

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