Work in Beirut and for Egypt He spent 1966–1968 in Beirut as Legal Adviser to the
United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA). There he experienced, from a distance, the
Six Day War and, much more directly, its effects in terms of the great increase in the number of refugees falling under UNRWA's remit. It coloured his attitude to the Middle East conflict thereafter: his rooms at Queens had on the walls photos of some of those refugees. In later years he successfully represented Egypt against Israel in a significant territorial dispute.
Work in Somalia In 1964 while a Fellow of Queens' he was asked by the newly independent Government of
Somalia to advise it on its territorial disputes with Ethiopia and Kenya. This was his first international law brief. On arrival in
Mogadishu he was asked to draft a diplomatic note closing the
British Embassy, on the basis that Britain was refusing to give effect to a
plebiscite in the Northern Frontier District of Kenya, which had voted by a large majority to reunite with Somalia. Lacking experience in rupturing diplomatic relations, he asked to see the standard work,
Satow's Guide to Diplomatic Practice. But the Somali Foreign Ministry had no books of any kind, and he was told to borrow it from the British Embassy. The book was duly returned, with a note of thanks and another, more formal, note giving the Ambassador four days to leave. It seems to have been a case of
persona non grata sed liber gratus. ==Personal life==