LOSING track of Paul Harris is easy these days. One minute he is walking the violent streets of Colombia, the next, he is practising Cantonese in the tranquil Mui Wo neighbourhood on Lantau island.
However, tall, slenderly built and quintessentially English in his manner, Mr Harris is no young globe trotter but a professional lawyer. But it is not his day job the 42-year-old wishes to talk about.
What he wants to discuss is what he does in his spare time as an active member of a London-based human rights organisation, a role that in the past has taken Mr Harris to exotic locations including Africa, South America, Sri Lanka and, now, Hong Kong.
Set up three years ago by a group of barristers, the Bar Human Rights Committee (BHRC) aims to assist lawyers and judges overseas who are being persecuted or prevented from carrying out their professional duties. BHRC also helps maintain the rule of law in countries where it is under attack, by sending missions to report on human rights abuses.
Mr Harris spent 10 years in the British civil service and three in the Foreign Office after graduating from Oxford University in 1974. He passed his bar exams the following year, and was called to the bar in 1988.
He believes it is his experience in the Overseas Development Administration of the Foreign Office that helped him to become BHRC's first chairman in 1992, a post which he held until his move to Hong Kong last year.