Career
He practiced law in Pretoria from 1977 to 1987, specializing in labour law and civil and human rights, and now works in mediation and institutional transformation. In 1994 he was appointed by South African President Nelson Mandela to chair a Prison Audit Committee and was subsequently involved in the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In 1987 he founded the National Directorate of Lawyers for Human Rights which he headed for eight years.
But he quit his role in December 2001, saying that as Portadown Orangemen had withdrawn from dialogue, he was "unable to take the process any further".
He has been involved since 2004 in the Basque Conflict. His work has been funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.
In the last years he is part of the international mediators team involved in the search of a negotiated solution for the conflict in the Basque Country between the Basque separatist organisation ETA (Basque Country and Freedom) and the Spanish and French governments. In November 2010 this group was officially set up as the International Contact Group for the Basque Country.
However, this mediators team is not recognized by either the Spanish or the French government.