Pillay tipped to become Human Rights HC

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NEW YORK, July 19: Navanethem Pillay, a high court judge from South Africa with links to Tamil Nadu in India, is being widely tipped to be nominated to the high profile office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights by the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon sometime next week. Her nomination has to be approved by the General Assembly.

The other short listed nominees were Ms. Hina Jilani of Pakistan and Juan Mendez of Argentina Ms. Jilani's candidacy surprisingly was not backed by Islamabad. Ms. Pillay was with International Criminal Court in the Hague but she shot into fame as the presiding judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

Ms. Pillay has the unique distinction of being the first non-white woman to sit in the bench of the High Court of South Africa. She succeeds Louise Arbour of Canada. His term ended on June 30. Some human rights activists expressed fear that Ms. Pillay would be more low-key than her predecessor in a job that requires encounters with governments that often resent human rights commissioner's intervention in their affairs, the New York Times reported today.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights works in close liaison with the Human Rights Council but is responsible directly to the UN secretary general. The both the offices are based in Geneva. The 47-member UN human rights council was trying to rein the office of the High Commissioner.

Pillay's first test will be at Zimbabwe where South Africa, China and Russia blocked an US led drive to impose security council sanctions on Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe. One challenge for judge Pillay will be to find a public voice that as a judge she was never called upon to have and if both the secretary general and the high commissioner are using only private diplomacy it is as if they are defending human rights with one arm tied behind, Kenneth Roth of the Human Rights Watch was quoted as saying by the New York Times.

The United States has privately raised concern over Pillay's appointment but office of the Zalmay Khalidzad, the US ambassador to UN, declined to say anything. It is the prerogative of the secretary general, they said.

Pillay's management skill, drive and energy will be put to test in the job. The significance of this appointment is that we have a human rights commissioner who really comes from the frontlines of the human rights movement, a Pillay supporter said. She will mix quiet diplomacy and outspoken criticism in her new assignment. She has been highlighting gender based crimes. Pillay is a person of great courage and she showed it in her anti-apartheid activities.

Pillay was born in 1941. Her father was a bus driver and mother had no formal education. She rose to eminence from a very modest family.