Peter Sutherland and the European Project

Abstract

Peter Sutherland and the European Project Paul Gallagher SC Introduction I am perhaps unusual among Peter Sutherland’s friends in that I only had the pleasure of knowing him for the last nine years of his life. Like many others, I was left with a profound sense of loss on his passing. His friendship was generous, kind and great fun. There was also a sense of Ireland’s great loss. Peter was an immense public figure at an international level, and was greatly admired and respected as a public and private person and he was a great representative of Ireland. The dangers of Brexit for Ireland, which he had campaigned against, made that loss all the greater. His unique expertise and experience at a European and global level would have been of great advantage to Ireland. The thinking and attitude which produced Brexit reflected values and beliefs which were the antithesis of those which defined him. In this article I will explore my understanding of those values and beliefs, and what they were based upon. My explanation of his views is offered, not without some hesitation, but it is based upon my personal insights and conversations over the period of our friendship on matters of mutual interest. I will also consider the challenge to them from more recent events since his untimely death. Peter had many fine qualities which earned him praise and success in equal measure during his lifetime. Those qualities were used to such positive effect in many varied spheres and were underpinned by a great humanity. He believed in people and thought deeply about human values and circumstances. Spinoza said: ‘Those who are governed by reason desire nothing for themselves which they do not also desire for the rest of humankind’. That desire in many ways defined Peter Sutherland. He genuinely desired the best for others. He saw Europe as a means of improving the lives of Irish people and of Europeans generally. This desire was exemplified by what he did as a Commissioner and as Director General of GATT and, most of all, in his work as Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Migration and Development. A striking characteristic of his was that he could combine this worldview with great consideration and kindness not only to his friends but Studies • volume 109 • number 434 150 to everyone he encountered in his daily life. People were very important to Peter and were to be engaged with on a personal level. My only interaction with him prior to 2007 was in late 1982/early 1983, when he approached me one day in the Law Library during his period as Attorney General. Having never previously met him, I was surprised and delighted when he asked me, as a very young and inexperienced junior counsel, to do work developing some new Rules of the Superior Courts. I was struck then by how pleasant and kind he was. He presented the task as if I would be doing him a favour. I later learnt that that was characteristic of him. He was well aware of his ability and his capacity to influence affairs, but in his dealings with individuals he displayed an instinctive kindness, a compassion and a sincerity that I have rarely encountered. Many people have spoken about his great acts of generosity to individuals, some of whom he did not know well, but who had fallen on hard times or had some particular difficulty of which Peter became aware. He never discussed these matters, but he had an extraordinary empathy for people and their situations. This was all the more remarkable from a person whose work and responsibility required him to operate under immense pressure, at a very elevated level. He also had a remarkable and unique capacity to mix with anyone at any level. At the Bilderberg meetings which he attended annually, he mixed with some of the most influential people in the world, and his interaction with those people was no different from his interaction with his friends and, indeed, with people whom he did not know. Commitment to Europe Peter’s commitment to Europe and the European ideal was perhaps not surprising, given his...