Originally issued as a CGS press release on March 24, 2008.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has announced that she will leave her position when her term ends in June. As United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Arbour has been extraordinary in her courage, energy and integrity in speaking out forcefully on human rights issues.
“United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has consistently represented the highest ideals of the United Nations and has been a perfect example of the kind of champion the international community needs to lead discussions on global human rights challenges in the coming decades,” said Raj Purohit, Interim Director and Senior Fellow of Citizens for Global Solutions.
“She will leave a legacy of a strengthened and more wide-ranging United Nations human rights system with a stronger focus on justice and accountability as well as a more balanced approach to civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights,” Purohit said.
Arbour never hesitated to incur the criticism of States, or other entities, by highlighting the victims of abuses and the inadequacies of legal systems everywhere. She consistently has been willing to make the case of victims and unabashedly criticize states that fail to take responsibility to protect their people, a responsibility among the United Nations’ most important mandates.
Prior to her U.N. appointment, Arbour served as justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and as Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In her role as chief prosecutor, she indicted former Yugoslav and Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and investigated the displacement of two million citizens. The indictment of President Milosevic was the first of a serving Head of State.
