Event Details

Lecture by Denis Halliday, former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations (6 Oct 2010)

Denis Halliday, former Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations will speak on Wednesday 6th October at 2pm, on the topic of the "Dublin Tribunal verdict on Sri Lanka - what is to be done ?"

About Dennis Halliday
Denis Halliday resigned from his 34 year old career in the UN because of the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the Security Council. Laureate of the Gandhi International Peace Award;
former United Nations Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq (1997-1998). In 2000 Dennis Halliday was jointly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize with Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness, the campaign against sanctions on Iraq.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Denis J. Halliday, a national of Ireland, to the post of United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Baghdad, Iraq as of 1 September 1997, at the Assistant Secretary-General level. In October 1998 he resigned after a 34 year career with the UN. He did so to free himself of the constraints imposed on him by the Secretary-General and thereby speak out publicly on the terrible impact of UN economic sanctions on the people of Iraq. Prior to that, and from mid 1994, Mr. Halliday served as Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management of the United Nations, based in its New York Headquarters. Mr. Halliday has spent most of his long career with the United Nations in development and humanitarian assistance-related posts both in New York and overseas, primarily in South-East Asia. Following a year in Kenya as a Quaker volunteer 1962-63, Mr. Halliday joined the United Nations in 1964 serving in Teheran, Iran as a junior professional officer in the forerunner of UNDP - the United Nations Technical Assistance Board and Special Fund. From 1966 to 1972, he served in the Asia Bureau of UNDP Headquarters in New York and then transferred to Malaysia in 1972. In Malaysia, covering programmes in that country plus Singapore and Brunei, he served until 1977 as Deputy Regional Representative. In Indonesia, he continued at the Deputy level for two years until 1979, when he was asked to reopen and head up as Resident Representative the UNDP office in Samoa covering that country, the Cook Islands, the Tokelau Islands and Niue in the South Pacific. In 1985, he took up the post of Deputy Director, Division of Personnel before becoming Chef de Cabinet in 1987.

A brief introduction to the Follow-up events (DCU and TCD) of the People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka

The Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) (successor to the Bertrand Russell Tribunal) conducted a People’s Tribunal on the war in Sri Lanka and its aftermath in Dublin in January 2010. Following its investigations the Tribunal found the Sri Lankan government guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The ten-member expert panel of judges of the Tribunal also declared that the International Community, particularly the UK and USA, share responsibility for the breakdown of the peace process. The EU was also held responsible for the obstruction of the peace process. There were over 20 witnesses who testified at the Tribunal. Many of them were surviors of the last phase of war who managed to flee the country. The former head of the Nordic monitoring mission of the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) in Sri Lanka gave evidence at the Tribunal Video footages from the war-torn region were presented before the panel of judges while a large number of written affidavits were also taken into consideration by the PPT.

The panel of judges comprised of internationally renowned former UN officers, academics and peace and human rights campaigners. The panel was chosen by the PPT from across the Global South and North in order to transcend geopolitical barriers and to ensure that its findings are both credible and ethically binding. The People’s Tribunal on Sri Lanka (PTSL) was supported by a large number of individuals and human rights and peace organisations throughout the world. It was organised by the Irish Forum for Peace in Sri Lanka (IFPSL). Ireland was chosen because of its historical status as a post-colonial nation, the success of the Northern Ireland peace process, and its traditional policy of neutrality.

Please visit the following website for the full report of the Tribunal:
http://www.ifpsl.org/