Ban tips Pillay for top job
2008-07-19 12:04
United Nations - The UN chief told human rights advocates that he has selected South African judge Navanethem Pillay to serve as the next UN human rights commissioner, Human Rights Watch Director Kenneth Roth said on Friday.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he had selected Pillay, who was the first black woman to serve on her country's High Court, though he had not yet taken official action, said Roth, who was among a dozen representatives from human rights groups that met with Ban early Friday afternoon.
"Ban described her as the presumptive nominee," Roth said.
Ban's office is expected to announce her appointment early next week, said UN and diplomatic officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the appointment had not yet been announced.
Pillay, who is now an appeals chamber judge with the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, also must be approved by UN General Assembly.
Some nations, such as the US, have expressed reservations about Pillay, including her support for women's access to abortion, contraception and other reproductive freedoms, and how she might handle next year's follow up to the 2001 UN World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa, which drew controversy due to anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli stands.
Other questions about Pillay, including whether she could be an effective, outspoken champion of human rights, have been raised by some rights groups, officials said.
One diplomatic official expressed scepticism Pillay would be confirmed, but most others said her nomination was not expected to meet with any significant opposition. Ban has kept General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim in the loop about his progress in selecting a successor to Louise Arbour, the current UN high commissioner of human rights.
But Ban had not forwarded any official notice of his selection to Kerim nor did the two discuss the matter Friday, officials said. Ban also was expected to consult with all the groups that represent various regions of the world within the 192-nation General Assembly.
High-profile position
The two other top contenders for the job of UN human rights commissioner were Hina Jilani of Pakistan, a special UN envoy on human rights, and Juan Mendez of Argentina, a special UN envoy on genocide.
The General Assembly previously elected Pillay as a judge to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she served for eight years, including four years as president. Pillay, who holds a degree from Harvard Law School, was the first woman to start a law practice in the South African province of Natal, opening an office there in 1967, according to the ICC, which provided background information.
She would succeed Arbour, a former Supreme Court judge in Canada who, as human rights commissioner, has held one of the most high-profile positions at the United Nations.
Arbour, who was chief prosecutor of the UN tribunals for war crimes in Yugoslavia and Rwanda, helped raise the job's profile through her outspokenness and by nearly doubling her office's budget to almost $100m. Her office and the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council, which addresses human rights violations, are based in Geneva, Switzerland.
Roth said Pillay's challenge "will be to speak out publicly in the face of severe abuse, and to ensure that her office addresses even powerful governments, whether the United States on its abusive counterterrorism policies or her own South Africa for its callous defence of Mugabe's repression in Zimbabwe. These are steps that she has not been called upon to take as an international judge."
- AP