The Central Tibetan Administration Welcomes Kofi Annan’s Appointment of the New UN High Commissioner on Human Rights
Madam Louise Arbour (CP File Photo) |
Dharamsala, 25 February: Louise Arbour, Canadian Supreme Court justice, was named by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the UN’s new high commissioner for human rights. The Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) hails the choice of Arbour and is sure that the appointment will not meet any opposition in the UN General Assembly. The General Assembly of 191 UN members must approve her nomination by the Secretary-General.
Kalon Thupten Lungrig-the CTA’s Minister for the Education, Religion and Cultural Affairs- in his advance felicitation to Madam Arbour said, “We have received the happy news of the intention by the Secretary General Kofi Annan to appoint you as the new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. My colleagues in the Kashag extend our hearty congratulations and wish you every success in carrying out the responsibilities of this great office. It is our sincere hope that under your tenure, which we are sure will soon be approved, the world will see huge improvement in the standard of human rights.”
On the news of her appointment, Madam Arbour said in a release: “The High Commissioner for Human Rights plays a key role on the world scene, and I will devote all of my energies to this extraordinary challenge when I leave the Supreme Court of Canada in June.” She gained international prominence as the second chief prosecutor of the tribunals trying the main perpetrators of the 1994 Rwanda genocide and the massive human rights crimes in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s.
Arbour succeeds Sergio Vieira de Mello as High Commissioner for Human Rights, the official responsible for evaluating the human rights records of UN members. De Mello died last year in the August 19 suicide bombing attack on UN headquarters in Baghdad, where he was serving as special representative to Iraq. At the time, the CTA also sent its condolences to Mr. De Mello’s family in which the Kalon Tripa said, “his death will be mourned and he will be deeply missed by people who suffer and continue to suffer human rights abuses”.