ID :
14455
Thu, 07/31/2008 - 11:07
Auther :
Shortlink :
http://m.oananews.org//node/14455
The shortlink copeid
Personal experience of apartheid will help in new post: Pillay
United Nations, July 30 (PTI) The newly appointed Indian origin UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay said she will be able to perform better in her new assignment based on her own experience of living in South Africa duringthe apartheid regime.
"I think I come with a real understanding of what it's like to have your human rights violated and to have it violated for a very long time without any justice in sight, and the apartheid struggle taught that," Pillay said in aninterview with UN Radio.
The leadership in her home country had been critical in bringing about dramatic change for the better, said Pillay,67, while referring to the system of Apartheid.
Apartheid was a system of legalised racial segregation enforced by the National Party government of South Africa between 1948 and 1994. The apartheid legislation classified inhabitants and visitors into racial groups of black, white,coloured and Indian or Asian.
Pillay, who will take up her post in Geneva on September 1, went on to cite the establishment of the Human Rights Council, where she said Member States now subscribe to the notion of accountability, monitoring and peer reviews, as an example of dramatic change that had taken place globally inthe human rights field.
Noting that her predecessor Louise Arbour had established human rights offices in 50 countries, Pillay said she wantedto take that work forward.
"I see these as progressive trends which would advance the work of the High Commissioner in protecting human rights everywhere." She said nations now took human rights with the seriousness that they deserved, drawing on her experience of serving as a Judge on the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) since 2003, and before that as both Judge and President on the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda(I.C.T.R.), which she joined in 1995.
"My experience as an international judge is where political leadership has been brought to account for complicity in some very grave international crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. I was on the panel of judges that sentenced the Prime Minister of Rwanda tolife imprisonment for the offense of genocide," she said.
The High Commissioner acknowledged that she would have to operate in a different manner in her new post from her previous work for criminal tribunals, even though she saidthere were close links between the two activities.
"The criminal trials have the power to punish, the High Commissioner has to find various approaches of persuasion, of strong talk, or to develop civil society organizations to meetthe source of the violations," she said.
"I think I come with a real understanding of what it's like to have your human rights violated and to have it violated for a very long time without any justice in sight, and the apartheid struggle taught that," Pillay said in aninterview with UN Radio.
The leadership in her home country had been critical in bringing about dramatic change for the better, said Pillay,67, while referring to the system of Apartheid.
Apartheid was a system of legalised racial segregation enforced by the National Party government of South Africa between 1948 and 1994. The apartheid legislation classified inhabitants and visitors into racial groups of black, white,coloured and Indian or Asian.
Pillay, who will take up her post in Geneva on September 1, went on to cite the establishment of the Human Rights Council, where she said Member States now subscribe to the notion of accountability, monitoring and peer reviews, as an example of dramatic change that had taken place globally inthe human rights field.
Noting that her predecessor Louise Arbour had established human rights offices in 50 countries, Pillay said she wantedto take that work forward.
"I see these as progressive trends which would advance the work of the High Commissioner in protecting human rights everywhere." She said nations now took human rights with the seriousness that they deserved, drawing on her experience of serving as a Judge on the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.) since 2003, and before that as both Judge and President on the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda(I.C.T.R.), which she joined in 1995.
"My experience as an international judge is where political leadership has been brought to account for complicity in some very grave international crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. I was on the panel of judges that sentenced the Prime Minister of Rwanda tolife imprisonment for the offense of genocide," she said.
The High Commissioner acknowledged that she would have to operate in a different manner in her new post from her previous work for criminal tribunals, even though she saidthere were close links between the two activities.
"The criminal trials have the power to punish, the High Commissioner has to find various approaches of persuasion, of strong talk, or to develop civil society organizations to meetthe source of the violations," she said.
