UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour to Step Down at Term End

WUNRN

Ban Ki-Moon Pays
Tribute to Human Rights Chief, Following Exit Announcement

“I have been most impressed by her extraordinary courage, energy and
integrity in speaking out forcefully on human rights, which is among the UN’s
most important mandates,” Mr. Ban said, following the announcement Ms.
Arbour made at the Human Rights Council – the UN body
inaugurated under her tenure, which ends in June.

Mr. Ban said that she never hesitated to incur the criticism of States or
other parties by highlighting the victims of abuses or pointing out the
inadequacies of national legal systems, and she consistently represented the
highest ideals of the Organization.

“Her legacy will be one of a strengthened and more wide-ranging United
Nations human rights system, a stronger focus on justice and accountability,
reformed protection mechanisms, and a more balanced approach to the full range
of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights,” he said.

Ms. Arbour, a Canadian Supreme Court Justice and ex-prosecutor of UN war
crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda,
assumed the post of High Commissioner in 2004, after her predecessor, Sergio
Vieira de Mello, was killed in a terrorist attack in Baghdad.

Along with announcing her departure, Ms. Arbour today presented her final
annual report to the Council, highlighting the distressing human rights
implications of renewed conflict in West Darfur and Sri Lanka.

In regard to the Council itself, she said the report stressed the need to
support the participation of the least-developed countries in the first-ever
Universal Periodic Review, which will assess the rights situation in all UN
Member States.

She promised to share reflections on her tenure as High Commissioner at the
Council’s next session in June.

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