Watch the video from our latest MIRI Seminar

Minority Issues Research Institute (MIRI) organized MIRI Seminar on Current Affairs featuring a conversation with Sir Charles Petrie Bt, OBE (Human Security Consultant, FR), about the current state of the United Nations as the pillar of the global human rights structure and was held on December 12, 2025.

The seminar was held via Zoom on Friday, December 12, 2025, at 3:00 pm CET.

We are very grateful to speaker Sir Charles Petrie Bt, OBE (Human Security Consultant, FR), and moderator Mirsad Kriještorac, Ph.D. (Minority Issues Research Institute, SK).

To all participants, we would like to thank them for their time and attendance. 

Additionally, gratitude is extended to the event organizers, Dr Svetluša Surova and Mirsad Kriještorac, Ph.D. , Senior Researchers at MIRI who are in charge of our Capacity-building and Networking activities.

We hope you enjoyed attending our event as much as we enjoyed putting it together.

About the seminar

Every year on December 10, we celebrate Human Rights Day, marking the anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) by the United Nations General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948. This declaration sets down, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally upheld. Human rights are not only concepts but also our everyday realities and the necessities we rely on.

Minority Issues Research Institute (MIRI) organized a conversation with a long-term UN diplomat, Sir Charles Petrie Bt, OBE, about the current state of the United Nations as the pillar of the global human rights structure, as well as what new horizons and challenges both the United Nations and the human rights regime are facing now. Is multilateralism and the UN still relevant in today's nearly Darwinian, multipolar world when the rule of law is so blatantly disregarded?

About the Speaker

Sir Charles Petrie Bt, OBE, has had close to 30 years’ experience working in situations of violence and hunger, much of it with the UN system. With the UN, he has assumed senior-level operational and policy responsibility in Afghanistan, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gaza and the Palestinian Territories, Myanmar/Burma, Republic of Congo, Rwanda (during the 1994 Genocide), Somalia, South Africa and the Sudan. As the Secretary General's envoy to Burundi, Charles Petrie left the UN at the end of 2010. Since February 2021, Charles Petrie has been offering support to Myanmar's civil society’s opposition against the military. In this capacity, he has been able to acquire a greater idea of the limits of traditional humanitarian aid in reaching those most impacted, pushing for a new model of international engagement to be identified and developed that is to encourage the formation of local governance structures.

This seminar was hosted by the Minority Issues Research Institute (MIRI).