Charlotte Carles | Indo Pacific Fellow
Charlotte Carles and Maki Katsuno-Hayahikawa. Image provided by author.
Through the New Colombo Plan, I am currently volunteering full-time for five months at UNESCO’s regional office in Jakarta under the Social and Human Sciences Unit. Last week I had the honour of sitting down with the Director-General of our office, Ms. Maki Katsuno-Hayashikawa. Ms. Katsuno-Hayashikawa is an inspiring and down-to-earth leader, respected by everyone in our office. Join us for a conversation about the reality of life as a UN leader, whether human rights are truly universal, and the future of AI in the Indo-Pacific region.
How did your journey at UNESCO begin?
It’s something that many young people ask me. I joined UNESCO under the Junior Professional Officer Scheme, which is a scheme that is funded by your country of origin (in my case, the Japanese government). My first preference was UNESCO, and that’s how I got in.
The reason that I wanted to come to UNESCO was because my background is in education. I was a member of one of the UNESCO associations in my district in high school. I learnt about the Constitution, and the preamble that touches everyone’s hearts about building the defences of peace in the minds of women and men. I had one particularly memorable experience which involved supporting Vietnamese refugees in the 1980s. They came through Japan on their way through to a third country. When they came through Japan, the Vietnamese refugees were placed near the Tokyo Bay. Our group was called in to support them, to keep them company, and to have fun together. That’s when I learnt how education can really help children of other countries. I’ve been here now for 30 years in total. I have been out of UNESCO twice, and it’s important when you work with the UN to not be too preoccupied with only one agency.
What is your advice to young people who want to a career at the UN?
One of the things that many people ask me is how to build a career in the UN. In reality, there are many people who work in the UN system forever until retirement. But in theory, this shouldn’t be the case. The UN shouldn’t be a place where you seek lifetime employment. Many people come to UNESCO mid-career, when they are already experts.
One thing that I always tell young people is don’t be too obsessed with the UN. What’s important is: what do you really want to do? How can you utilise your skills and contribute? I always say that, after all, the UN is a global bureaucracy. When you see the news where the UN is addressing emergency situations, giving out food and clothes, remember that not all of the UN is fieldwork. In reality, we’re doing paperwork every day too. When an idealistic young person comes to the UN, sometimes they get disillusioned with the bureaucracy. We have to advocate for universal values, but at the same time, we are international civil servants of the Member States.
We shouldn’t be idolising the job too much. However, the value of working at the UN is working on critical policy matters which could be politically sensitive. We work for the benefit of citizens, and how to ensure that the principles of human rights are respected and protected. We exist to maintain the peace and security of the world. The UN isn’t the career for everyone; you need a high level of resilience and courage. Here, you have many different backgrounds, different languages, different educational systems. The nice part is that you have so much diversity; you have the entire world compressed in one organisation at UNESCO. You need to be very empathetic, and very diligent.
What is something unique about working in the UN system?
As UN staff, don’t forget that you have to hold on to your integrity because you can get influenced by political pressure by Member States. You never know; government officers may approach you and demand something that is either ethically wrong, or which goes against human rights principles, and you have to say no. Honesty and transparency are so important. If we are offered expensive gifts, we have to gently decline as UN staff typically cannot receive honorariums. I often get invited to be a speaker at universities, and they always offer honorariums, and I always say no because it’s pro-bono.
Can ‘human rights’ truly be universal, or does the framework not translate across all cultures?
Sometimes the interpretation and application of human rights can be very difficult in certain cultures, particularly in Asia. In Japan, people don’t claim their rights. It’s a group mentality: you don’t want to stand out by claiming your rights if that could also disturb the harmony of society. That’s similar in other Asian contexts. That’s why the gender equality index in Japan is so low, it’s not just because women are not in the workplace. It’s also because protection for women against domestic violence is not that high, but because Japan seems so peaceful many people don’t know that.
There’s a way to implement human rights principles in different cultural contexts by understanding cultural values first. The bottom line is that human rights exist to protect individuals from harm and violence to ensure that every person can live peacefully and securely. It’s really basic stuff that in the 21st century we should all understand. What we try to do is use the language of other cultures. It’s best to not use the jargon of the UN in all countries, as the term “human rights” can upset some governments. An example of this is promoting how good it to have your child in school and what short-term and “long-term” benefits come from education, without saying “the child has a right to education”. People also don’t want to talk about feminism, but you don’t have to talk about women’s rights to ensure the safety of women. To some extent, the UN’s principles of human rights can be Western-centric, but there are certain fundamental issues that are common in any context, and you have to find a way to adapt them. Often countries say the UN human rights principles are Western and just use that as an excuse for their behaviour.
The big conversation on everyone’s lips is AI – what do you see as its future in the Indo-Pacific?
It’s the discussion that we were having at CNN’s The Big Idea Forum the other day. The work that we do in AI is helping countries to assess their readiness. We are creating the basis for normative AI application through the Ethics of AI Recommendation. The work that we’re doing is helping us to recognise how the region will look in the coming years. In this region, we are spearheading the Readiness Assessment Methodology in Indonesia, then the Philippines, then Malaysia, then Timor-Leste. Companies like Google and Microsoft are very worried about how regulations might restrict their research and development. We need robust ethical frameworks so that AI doesn’t explode on its own, so that we don’t have a world like Terminator 3.
Thank you so much for your time, Ibu Maki!
Charlotte Carles is the Indo Pacific Fellow for Young Australians in International Affairs. Charlotte is a third year Bachelor of Laws (Honours) student from Fremantle and is currently living in the Indo Pacific region as a 2024 New Colombo Plan Scholar. She loves languages and is learning French, Spanish and Indonesian. As Indo Pacific Fellow, Charlotte intends to explore human rights and youth advocacy in the region.
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