DV: Do you remember the first time you came to Geneva?

FA: It was in the summer of 1991. I had been working since 1983 for Colombian ngos helping lawyers to file complaints of abuse of power by the military and to investigate cases of disappearances. It was an extremely sensitive area. In the mid-1980s, Latin American NGOs organised a session of the people’s tribunal on the subject of impunity in Latin America. During the final meeting, I denounced some officers of paramilitary groups responsible for disappearances and assassinations who had changed their identities and resurfaced as members of the intelligence services. From that moment on, it was no longer safe for me. My friends at Amnesty International advised me to leave the country. I went first to Venezuela, then Spain and finally Belgium where I worked for a small Latin American NGO which assigned me to the UN human rights sub-committee. That was the first time I came to Geneva.

DV: It was your first contact?

FA: Yes. I lived in Europe when I was small but I was never in Switzerland. I was born in France to a French father of Catalan origin and a Colombian mother. But we left France when I was only 18 or 20 months old. I felt I already knew Geneva because for me it was the city of the United Nations. It was there I sent my human rights reports. When I arrived, I thought that it would be larger. But I like it the way it is. I’m glad it’s not a big city.

DV: Is there a big difference between Brussels and Geneva?

DV: Is this a choice for you or a financial necessity?

FA: I’ve always liked keeping my professional life separate from my personal life. I work a lot. I consider myself a human rights militant, but there’s a life apart from that, and it is healthy to develop contacts and friendships outside your circle of work colleagues.

DV: Don’t you feel the image of Geneva is tarnished by money?

FA: You can see there’s lots of money around. Whenever friends visit us we always take them to the lakefront, the old city and to Bel Air. When you see watches selling for 200,000 francs, you know there has to be money around…

DV: Is Geneva very different from the rest of Switzerland?

FA: I don’t know the rest of Switzerland very well. Whenever we go on holiday we go to Colombia. The chances to travel here are limited but it’s true when they arise we don’t use them. Maybe I work too much and there are budgetary constraints. It’s not cheap travelling in Switzerland. The only place we’ve been to is the Jura where we spent a week on holiday. It was magnificent.

DV: For you, is Geneva primarily the city of international, humanitarian and aid organisations?

DV: When you lived in Colombia, did you have this image of Switzerland as a country that welcomed refugees and asylum seekers?

FA: I had a multi-facetted, perhaps contradictory image. For one thing there is the Geneva I’ve been telling you about, then there’s the country where everything turns around the very rich who come with their money, who hatch shady schemes with the help of banking secrecy, a huge financial marketplace and a haven for large companies. At the same time it’s a country showing a great willingness to cooperate internationally, of people keen for contact with other realities, of a very open asylum policy despite the constraints and the contradictory debates…

DV: Have these contradictory feelings been reinforced by your stay?

FA: In some ways, yes. But in other ways, I’ve discovered different realities. For example, the festive side, the neighbourhood parties, the bazaars, the little markets. We have two in Eaux-Vives. I love to walk through them.

DV: Do you have the impression that things have ‘normalised’ in Switzerland in recent years? What was once an island of prosperity is now confronted with economic difficulties, unemployment, the bankruptcy of major companies…

FA: Perhaps because I lived for a time in Meyrin, where there is a lot of misery, I saw that Geneva is not only a city of prosperity. And habits have also changed… in a more liberal sense… at least in Geneva.

DV: Has your experience here confirmed or refuted the clichés you had when you arrived… boring, too organised, too many police, too clean?

FA: It has worked both ways. One day I crossed the street at a spot where there was no traffic light. Someone came up to me and said I shouldn’t do that. It was against the law. I still cross the street where I want. I always pay attention, but no one lectures me anymore. On the other hand, my wife, who is Colombian, once told the neighbour that she shouldn’t just leave her garbage lying around. And that’s good.

DV: She’s well integrated.

FA: Sometimes she can be too Swiss.

DV: Could you define the art of Swiss living?

FA: I have the impression that the Swiss enjoy life, they appreciate good cooking, good wines, music, literature… And they have a kind of thirst to see what is going on elsewhere. At the same time they have to fight boredom. Perhaps it’s a phenomenon general to Europe because people lack challenges or because they are not confronted with the problem of day-to-day survival as in countries of the south. Switzerland is a country where apparently everything is well-ordered, everything is regulated. But the art of making-do has been lost.

DV: In your neighbourhood, are you seen as Colombian, French or an international civil servant?

FA: It doesn’t matter so much. I’m seen as a resident of the neighbourhood.

DV: What is the role of this International Commission of Jurists?

DV: Do you get the impression that the subject of human rights is in decline today?

FA: It’s under attack. In the past 10-15 years there has been an enormous development in human rights. The concept of human rights has become a basic element of state power. In education, for example, the study of human rights never used to be an official discipline... not a legal discipline anyway. If you became involved with it, you were taken for a fool, a subversive or a researcher lost to science. Today an incredible number of universities offer courses and doctorates, even a bit too many. When you look at the multiplicity of treaties, protocols and agreements that have been signed in recent years, there have been major advances. But at the same time since 11 September 2001, human rights, fundamental liberties and the protection of the individual have suffered in the name of the fight against terrorism. On one hand, it has been possible to defend human rights successfully by penetrating all political lines of thought. But there’s also been a simplification, which is something normal and positive unless it’s used to diminish human rights again in the face of new threats. It’s always the same debate between the need to guarantee liberties and the need to ensure security. The balance between the two is changing in the debate on foreigners and on the asylum law.

DV: That is also an issue within states and in relations between states. A few years ago the right of intervention became one of the elements of the international system. Now the notion of national sovereignty seems to be reviving.

FA: There’s a generally accepted body of law but it’s debated. Human rights constitute a legitimate restriction of sovereignty. But the right of intervention needs further definition because of the difficulties of distinguishing between intervention that is humanitarian or intervention that is in fact non-humanitarian disguised as humanitarian. What are the limits to sovereignty? For that matter what are the limits to globalisation? To what extent do states have the capacity to resist globalised multinational companies? How do you improve the capacity of states to strengthen the rights of citizens?

DV: Is the International Commission of Jurists interested in the fight against terrorism?

FA: We have a programme called counter terrorism and security. From the outset we have supported the idea that the United Nations should appoint a special rapporteur to ensure that human rights are respected in the fight against terrorism.

DV: The question is premature but if you retire, will you stay in Switzerland?

FA: No. We’ll go back to Colombia because our emotional roots are there. In the meantime, we’re fine here. I’ve received very interesting job offers from elsewhere in Europe and the United States, but we asked ourselves why we should leave. We’re happy in Geneva. I don’t know if I would be able to go back to Colombia to live. Every year they tell me it isn’t the moment and every year it gets worse. When I go back on vacation, I don’t have any problem. I know I’m being watched but not threatened, perhaps because now I have a certain notoriety. Repression is like the economy. It works on the basis of the cost-benefit ratio. Why create trouble with someone inoffensive like me? Even so, I can’t imagine ending my days here, not because I don’t like this country or city. If it weren’t for Colombia, why not?