South African lawyer set to become next UN high commissioner for human rights

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South African lawyer set to become next UN high commissioner for human rights

Friday 18 July 2008
By: JOHN HEILPRIN, The Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS

South African judge Navanethem Pillay is expected to be named as the next U.N. human rights commissioner, diplomatic and U.N. officials said Friday.

Pillay, who holds a Harvard law degree, currently serves as an appeals chamber judge on the International Criminal Court based in The Hague, Netherlands.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to put her name forward early next week, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because Ban's office has not yet made an official announcement. The appointment then must get U.N. General Assembly approval.

Human rights experts, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to pre-empt the announcement, also called it a done deal that Pillay would succeed the current commissioner, Louise Arbour, a former Supreme Court judge in Canada.

The job of U.N. high commissioner for human rights is one of the most high-profile posts at the United Nations.

Arbour, who also was chief prosecutor of the U.N. tribunals for war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, helped raise the job's visibility through her outspokenness. She also succeeded in nearly doubling her office's budget to almost $100 million.

Her office and the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council, which addresses human rights violations, are based in Geneva, Switzerland.

Pillay became the first woman to start a law practice in the South African province of Natal in 1967 and was the first black woman to serve on her country's High Court, according to the ICC.

She won election by the U.N. General Assembly to become a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she served for eight years, including four years as president.

The two other top contenders for the job of U.N. human rights commissioner were Hina Jilani of Pakistan, a special U.N. envoy on human rights, and Juan Mendez of Argentina, a special U.N. envoy on genocide.