SPEAKER: MARY ROBINSON

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced on 9 June 1997 the appointment of Mary Robinson, President of Ireland, as the new United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In that capacity, she will assume principal responsibility for the human rights activities of the Organization, including the tasks of streamlining the human rights machinery throughout the United Nations system and supervising the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva.

Ms. Robinson, President of Ireland since 1990, has outstanding legal qualifications and has worked in the area of human rights with special expertise in constitutional and European human rights law. She became a member of the English Bar (Middle Temple) in 1973. She served as a member of the International Commission of Jurists (1987-1990) and of the Advisory Commission of Inter-Rights (1984-1990).

Among the numerous international activities relating to human rights in which she participated, Ms. Robinson served as Special Rapporteur to the Interregional Meeting organized in 1993 by the Council of Europe on the theme "Human rights at the Dawn of the 21st Century", as part of its preparation for the 1993 Vienna World Conference on Human Rights. She delivered the keynote address at the Council of Europe preparatory meeting for the Beijing Fourth World Conference on Women.

Ms. Robinson was the first Head of State to visit Rwanda in the aftermath of the genocide there and made two further visits, the most recent to address the Pan-African Conference on "Peace, Gender and Development". While in Rwanda she met representatives of, and was briefed by, agencies on the ground, as well as by the United Nations Human Rights Monitors. She was also the first Head of State to visit the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, as well as the first Head of State to visit Somalia following the crisis there in 1992. Ms. Robinson received the Special CARE Humanitarian Award in recognition of her efforts for Somalia.

As Ireland's Head of State, Ms. Robinson represented her country internationally, developing a new sense of Ireland's economic, political and cultural links with other countries and cultures. She placed special emphasis during her Presidency on the needs of developing countries, linking the history of the Great Irish Famine to today's nutrition, poverty and policy issues, thus creating a bridge of partnership between developed and developing countries.