Look, you are interested in trying to make sure that governments keep a clean environment, have regard for the lifestyles of indigenous peoples, and work for fair trade rules. Well, it's exactly the same for human rights - from non-discrimination to the basic rights to food, safe water, education and health care. We are talking rights not needs. There are standards that governments have signed up to - but nobody is holding them to account.

From Iraq to Guantanamo Bay, international standards and the framework of international law are being given less when they should be given more importance. I am pleased that the courts in the United States are beginning to review what has happened to those detained in Guantanamo Bay. Similarly in Iraq we need to bring our strategies back within the framework of international norms and law.

South Africa is regarded as being an extraordinarily important country - not just for South Africa, but for Southern Africa, for the BRICS, working now in a new way in which power is becoming more shared - thankfully.

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

We will not let governments off the hook. We will look to civil society to help us, to pin governments, to what they have committed to here. And we will report on it.

People I admire have two qualities: a kind of simplicity, and generosity of spirit. It seems to me that the more impressive people are in what they have done, the simpler they tend to be in how they talk to you, or in what they say or write.

When a genocidal killing occurs, as happened in Rwanda, it is not just an internal domestic matter.