Midway through her Georgetown speech, a cell phone rang. It was Robinson’s. And with no presidential aide to answer it, she sheepishly fished it out of her bag and turned it off herself. Indeed, Robinson called the adjustment from being the Irish president to being the U.N. human rights commissioner “quite a shock.” “In the first week I was in an elevator in the U.N. building in New York which failed to move,” she recalled. “A colleague reminded me you need to press the button!” Though such experiences have obviously been humbling and Robinson self-deprecatingly calls the Elders “exalted has-beens like myself,” she said they have “one power: the power to ask.” She and other Elders are using that power to get leading organizations such as Amnesty International to be a part of the Every Human Has Rights initiative. But the Elders may have to go beyond high-minded persuasion and rely on old-fashioned cajoling in their effort. At just 13,564 signatures currently, the campaign is far from its goal of getting 1 billion people to sign up. Robinson admitted that the Elders are still in a learning curve. “We’re not doers; we have to stand back a bit,” she said, describing the Elders as having more of an “early warning” role. “We are not going to solve the world’s problems, but we can be a moral voice,” she explained. “The Irish presidency was non-executive, so it was a case of exerting moral authority, using the bully pulpit. The Elders also rely on moral authority, which means we must listen very carefully and try to amplify the voices that are excluded.” Facing Political Heat But the Elders are still clearly testing out the waters as to how far they can go to address in-tractable global conflicts, even though they’re no longer in official office. The group recently faced political heat in April, when former U.S. President Carter had planned to visit Syria, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations with several Elders, including Annan and Robinson. But when criticism erupted over Carter’s meeting with the militant group Hamas in Damascus, Annan and Robinson dropped out of the trip — though Carter went ahead on his own despite coming under fire by Israel and the United States. But Robinson is hardly shying away from tackling controversial problems, especially those that involve the United States. She also pursues an agenda outside the Elders, largely focused on human rights, trade and immigration — issues that have been profoundly complicated by the U.S.-led war on terrorism, which she argues has alienated and divided much of the world. “I believe there’s been too much focus on ‘who’s with us and who’s against us’ since 9/11,” Robinson said. “I knew 9/11 would have an impact, but I didn’t think it was going to be this bad,” she added, citing American violations of habeas corpus and torture conventions. “It’s the moderate Muslims who suffer the most from this,” she warned. “We now even have to re-word ‘democracy’ to ‘accountable government’ to get people in Muslim countries to em-brace the concept.” Robinson is also facing the effects of 9/11 as chair of the New York-based group Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, which promotes “humane” migration policies among other issues. She is currently studying migration between such countries as Morocco and Spain and holding public hearings on related issues. Robinson has noticed the use of “harsher and harsher” language to describe immigrants (such as “illegal aliens”) and advocates changing the nom-enclature, such as describing those who overstay a study or work visa as “migrants with irregular status.” “Language matters, and calling people by a double negative does tremendous harm,” Robinson argued. Yet she acknowledged the need for “migrants to take responsibility to integrate,” while at the same time encouraging more openness to immigration — a fitting position for the former leader of a country whose own emigrants have assimilated all around the world. Mark Hilpert is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.

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