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PATRICIA LEWIS, DISARMING THE WORLD The tranquility of Caheragh in the hills of West Cork, where Patricia Lewis has settled on making her return to Ireland, is a far cry from the worst-case scenarios for global annihilation and toxic terror. Things Patricia contemplates daily in her office at the United Nations. This year will be her tenth as the Director of the United Nations Institution for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) in Geneva, though it’s difficult not to feel that her work may never be done. Lewis is responsible for coming up with workable plans to bring about peace in our time. While that may sound preposterously utopian, any doe-eyed peacenik naivety she may have possessed has since been sorely tested — Its a daily challenge to educate world leaders about both weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and the myriad, often insurmountable, diplomatic obstacles to their global abolition. And so Lewis — approachable, eloquent and evidently as comfortable conflabbing with world leaders as she is in the local Irish pub — has also successfully cultivated what may be the most globally important behind-the-scenes talking shop for diplomats and key players in the business of disarming “I cover all the basic stuff,” says Lewis, “biological, nukes, chemical, small arms, land mines and everything in between. We do have to be based in some downtrodden reality of the UN, but at the same time lift ourselves out of the mud of international politics with a few ideals, which we try to turn into policy.” Lewis says she and her team try to “stir in some heat and light” to the tedious and halting negotiations on the various disarmament conferences under the aegis of the UN. “We try to create a safe place for delegates to talk,” she says. “We host meetings — all off the record. Mostly they are very cautious and don’t want to be seen to commit to anything — discussions can’t be seen to be a policy statement or publicly acknowledged.”
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