“Ruffling Feathers Is Part of the Job Of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights”

This is what Louis Arbor of Canada, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said before she left the office in June. Coming to this position from her previous job as Chief Prosecutor to the UN War Crimes Tribunal, she was known to have ruffled some feathers by taking a tough stance on the human rights record of some countries, especially those sitting on the Human Rights Council. Judge Navanethem Pillay of South Africa, Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s nominee as the new High Commissioner for Human Rights, has just been confirmed by consensus by the United Nations General Assembly to begin her work in Geneva on the 1st of September. Qualification for this post, according to the General Assembly, is that a person has to be of high moral standing with personal integrety and possess expertise in the field of human rights and the general knowledge and understanding of diverse cultures necessary for impartial, objective, non-selective and effective performance of her duties. Judge Pillay will carry on her new job within the framework of the Charter of the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. “Ruffling Feathers” is nothing new to her seeing from her background. She had many years of experience in fighting against Apartheid, domestic violence and other human right abuses in her country. She was put under South African Police surveillance when she successfully appealed to the provincial court which gave Mandela and his fellow inmates some very basic legal rights. Her new job as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights will require more international diplomacy on the occasions that she will be called to defend victims of human rights abuses by their own government. She will be expected to make the existing human right machinery work in order to renew public confidence in the United Nations. As a global advocate for human rights, she has an important task to strengthen governmental and non-governmental institutions created for human rights education and training. The High Commissioner for Human Rights job is one of the most difficult jobs in the World with high expectations from all levels of society from local, regional and global. I want to join others in congratulating her for this important appointment and to wish her well in her important task of promoting values, beliefs and attitudes that encourage all individuals to uphold their own rights and those of others.

Filed under United Nations, World Affairs |