ABSTRACT
The essence of UN human rights work and some conflicts between UN and State motivations can create a very difficult working environment. Although the working environment is often difficult, serving as a human rights officer for the UN in a field situation is a tremendous privilege. For reasons of neutrality and safety, national staff is rarely employed as "human rights officers" but fulfil, nevertheless, essential roles providing expertise, and working as interpreters, translators, drivers, and administrative assistants. The arbitrary imprisonment, beating, torture, and killing of national staff are not given the same media or political attention as that of international workers, a fact not in keeping with the notion of equality at the heart of the human rights message the people seek to share. Reference needs also to be made to some regularly overlooked, practical factors. This chapter necessarily focuses on the difficult aspects of human rights field work.
