UNITED NATIONS, July 24, 2008 (AFP) - UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Thursday formally appointed South African judge Navanethem Pillay to succeed Louise Arbour as his high commissioner for human rights, a choice hailed by Western countries and rights groups.
UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said the secretary general informed the UN General Assembly of his decision.
Hailing Pillay's "outstanding credentials in human rights and justice," Montas said Ban expected her to "preserve the independence of her (Geneva-based) Office and maintain effective working relations with the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council."
"It is now up to the (192-member) General Assembly to approve" the choice of Pillay, who currently serves as an appeals chamber judge on the International Criminal Court (ICC)," she told AFP.
Diplomats and UN officials said the Assembly was expected to do so at a meeting slated for next Monday.
"The Secretary General is determined to fully support Ms. Pillay in carrying out her work, including with increased resources, as approved by the General Assembly," Montas said in a statement.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in a statement pledged the "full support of France, of the entire membership of the European Union so that her office continues to grow stronger and act effectively in Geneva as in New York, and in the field, wherever men and women are deprived of their basic rights."
"I very much welcome this appointment," British Foreign Office Minister Mark Malloch-Brown said in a statement, describing Pillay as "a person of great integrity coupled with strong leadership skills."
"We wish her well. We look forward to working with her," US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad said, denying reports that Washington initially opposed her appointment because of her stand on reproductive rights.
"She has to be the voice of human rights and focus world attention on egregious violations of human rights," he told reporters.
"It's a good day for human rights and it's a good day for women's rights," said Taina Bien-Aime, executive director of Equality Now -- an international rights group which Pillay co-founded to combat violence and discrimination against women and girls around the world.
"Nava is one of many, many firsts but her firsts are really steeped in the protection of human rights, courage and fearlessness," she noted.
"We have every hope and confidence that as the next high commissioner for human rights she will bring all the skills and experience that she has in the field of human rights and hold governments accountable for the laws that they have signed," Bien-Aime added.
"We look forward to working with Judge Pillay," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based independent human rights monitoring group.
"Pillay will need to use her unique bully pulpit to throw a spotlight on the world's worst violations, including Sudan's mass killings in Darfur, Burmese brutality, Chinese persecution, and Mugabe's destruction of Zimbabwe," he added.
The South African jurist, who has been with the ICC since 2003, was picked from a short list that also included prominent Pakistani lawyer and human rights activist Hila Jilani and Argentine human rights lawyer Juan Mendez, according to diplomats and UN officials.
Born in 1941 and of Tamil descent, she previously served as a judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. In that capacity, she played a key role in landmark decisions defining rape as an institutionalized weapon of war and a crime of genocide.
In 1967, she became the first woman to set up a law practice in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal Province, where she provided legal defense for opponents to apartheid, and the first woman of color to serve in the High Court in the country.
The US-educated Pillay is to take over from Arbour, a 61-year-old Canadian jurist, who stepped down at the end of June after completing a four-year mandate.
Montas said Ban "is grateful for Ms. Arbour's dedicated service to the UN and to human rights" and "praises her untiring dedication and principled stewardship of the Organization's human rights program."
Arbour announced in March that she would not renew her mandate due to personal reasons, after a period that saw her office released damning reports on countries ranging from the United States to Zimbabwe to Sudan.
