The Israelis' blocking of investigations into what happened when their troops went into Jenin was attacked by the United Nations' Commissioner for Human Rights.

It wasn't the first time she's been obstructed in her work. It may not be the last. But it could be.

She quits her job in September after four years, publicly saying she's walking, but with loads of talk that she was pushed.

Jeremy Paxman spoke to Mary Robinson and asked her first whether she was forced to stand down.

Watch the interview

MARY ROBINSON:
(UN High Commissioner for Human Rights)
No, I in fact continued for a year longer than I had initially intended and I'm glad I did, because it's been important to be there for the last 12 months.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Did anyone ask you to stay on longer?

MARY ROBINSON:
A lot of people asked me to stay on longer.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Did the United States ask you to stay on longer?

MARY ROBINSON:
We won't go through all of the countries, but, no, they didn't!

JEREMY PAXMAN You have no sense that some countries, including the USA, actually wanted to get rid of you?

MARY ROBINSON:
I think it's inevitable in this position, if you do the job with full commitment, as I tried to do, and if you have a great sense of integrity of human rights, that over time you will build up resistances, because you have to very publicly address human rights violations, very sensitive issues, you've got to call on countries to investigate their situation, and certainly I think that¿s a good way to put it, that I came into this position to do a job, not to hold on to a job.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
If you had been asked to stay, would you have done?

MARY ROBINSON:
If I'd been asked compellingly and there were compelling reasons being put, then certainly it's not something I'd have walked away from.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Do you have confidence in the UN Human Rights Commission?

MARY ROBINSON:
The UN Human Rights Commission is a difficult body. Its 53 members are balanced, in a regional sense, as to who is elected to membership. This was part of the problem for the United States last year, when it wasn't elected from the Western group. I do have a number of concerns that I have expressed, including that membership of the commission should actually mean something, and if a country goes forward for membership, and I think every country is entitled to go forward under the UN system, there should be a commitment also to addressing their own human rights problems. I've said this repeatedly at this commission.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
I note in answer to the question, "Do you have confidence in that commission?", you do not answer "Yes".

MARY ROBINSON:
The commission continues to put forward, and this commission did as well, although it was a difficult commission, new ways in which at the international level we address human rights problems. New mandates, a working group on the disappeared, a special rapporteur on health and the highest attainable standard of health, an optional protocol on torture. These are the tools of the future. They're what we use to not only create the standards but to try and implement them. There was a lot of politicised voting, there was a lot of divisions on north-south issues on racism, et cetera. They are of concern, but we have to live with the system we have.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
But the countries which emerged condemned are only Cuba, Israel and Sudan this year?

MARY ROBINSON:
I think that the way in which the commission addresses problems is, in part, country situations, and it's true that a couple of countries that had had mandates of country rapporteurs came out from under those mandates and there was no resolution this year on Chechnya, for example. I'm concerned about that because it resulted from a kind of group voting which is a cause of some concern.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
You make a speech in which you talk of possible flaws in the way that "democracy" is exercised in Zimbabwe, and Zimbabwe sits on the commission!

MARY ROBINSON:
If the fact that Zimbabwe sits on the commission results in Zimbabwe addressing its own human rights issues and, as I am positing, is a responsibility of countries that go forward for membership of the commission, this could be useful. The UN is a universal system. I think it's not necessarily appropriate to bar countries from participating.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Look at a country like Cuba. Cuba has effectively suspended the death penalty for the last year. China, which executes more people than the rest of the world put together, as far as we can see, China is not censored, but Cuba is!

MARY ROBINSON:
Again, this is very much in the political arena.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Yes.

MARY ROBINSON:
The complexity of the human rights approach of a country is something that I'm acutely aware of. Taking China, I take two approaches to China. One is, particularly when I'm there, to be prepared to speak out very openly about my concerns about, as you say, the death penalty, about repression of political expression, about the Falun Gong, and so on. But I'm also engaged with China in what I believe, in the work of our office, is a very important commitment to make a change in such vital areas on re-education through labour, recognising that it doesn't conform to the standards of due process, and China's working its way towards ratifying the covenant on civil and political rights. Recently, on human rights education, introducing into the curriculum of primary and secondary schools, a whole approach to human rights that is based on the international human rights standards. This won't change anything today or tomorrow. But it's embedding a possible culture of human rights in the largest country in the world.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Do you really believe a country which behaves like that has any business sitting on a United Nations commission on human rights?

MARY ROBINSON:
This is what I say. The UN is a peculiar club, it's all countries. Countries go forward and seek support politically. It's not necessarily the system I'd devise if I was given the power to devise a system. But it has one important value. We talk about the universality of human rights. We have to therefore open the club to all countries, to be concerned, to come forward as part of the commission on human rights which is the lead UN body. We need a good combination of the useful pressure that NGO¿s bring to this debate, that the rapporteurs themselves bring to this debate. There is going to be a lot of reflection about a commission which disappointed many, including me.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
There must be part of you which is actually quite glad to kick the sand from your shoes.

MARY ROBINSON:
I think I'm really conscious of what an extraordinary experience it has been, and how much I've learned about, as you say, not a perfect way of doing things but how to work within that. I've made good friends and have good colleagues in the UN system. Probably what I'll be more delighted than anything else to escape is the bureaucratic rules. But a lot of the work is extraordinarily important. I believe in it. I believe that the system is very imperfect and at a certain level politicised. But I think we have put forward an integrity of a message that is heard by hundreds of thousands of victims of human rights world wide and supports human rights defenders.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Mary Robinson, thank you.

This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.