To look at what is easy to look past. And to hold a space where understanding becomes possible.

The Path

My path has led through many places. For the UN Refugee Agency I worked in Indonesia, Switzerland, Chad, and Sweden, and later in Strasbourg, for the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights. In Hebron I was legal adviser to an international observer mission. Woven through it all was journalism: a master’s at Columbia University in New York, with stints at Swiss national television and the business paper Handelszeitung.

Back in Switzerland, I spent several years at the Swiss Centre of Expertise in Human Rights, alongside Professor Walter Kälin. Today I am at the National Commission for the Prevention of Torture. As a team, we visit places where people are deprived of their liberty, and look at how they are treated.

Alongside this, I work as a mediator in my own practice, including with the team Vier Interpretationen.

The Sensibility

What connects them is less a field of expertise than a sensibility. I try to be clear about what I see, and just as clear about what I do not know. To name what is difficult without losing the connection.

I listen, give room, and have an eye for what is not visible at first glance. Facts and clear analysis fascinate me as much as what shows itself intuitively or indistinctly.

What Lies Beneath

Beneath all of this lies a question that draws me more and more: the question of consciousness and presence. How do we stay aware — in conflicts, in decisions, in a world where we increasingly hand our thinking over to machines?

Over the past few years, this question has slowly and deeply moved to the center. I follow it with curiosity, and with a certain sense of adventure. What I learn along the way flows back into the work — into the way I meet people and situations.