About OHCHR Nepal

Richard Bennett

Mr. Bennett has been serving since August 2004 as the Representative of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Afghanistan and Chief Human Rights Officer in the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan. He has extensive experience in human rights protection both domestically and internationally. Mr. Bennett has served with the United Nations in senior human rights posts in complex operations in East Timor and Sierra Leone since 2000. Prior to joining the United Nations, he worked for many years with the New Zealand Human Rights Commission and the Ministry of Justice.

Navanethem Pillay

Biodata of Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights

The High Commissioner for Human rights, who has the rank of Under Secretary-General of the United Nations, heads the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The post of High Commissioner was established in December 1993 by a General Assembly resolution, in accordance with a recommendation contained in the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action. The resolution specifies that the High Commissioner is the principal United Nations official responsible for United Nations human rights activities, and that the High Commissioner performs his/her duties under the direction and authority of the Secretary-General. The resolution gives the High Commissioner the broad mandate to promote and protect all human rights: civil, political, economic, social and cultural.

Navanethem Pillay was appointed High Commissioner for Human Rights by the United Nations Secretary-General and approved by the General Assembly, effective 1 September 2008. From 2003 to 2008, Ms. Pillay, a South- African national, served as Judge on the International Criminal Court (ICC). She was elected Judge President of the UN International Criminal Court Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 1999, which she joined in 1995 having been elected as Judge by the UN General Assembly; her four year term with ICTR was renewed in 1998. Ms. Pillay participated in the ICTR’s groundbreaking jurisprudence on rape as genocide and on issues of freedom of speech and hate propaganda. Navanethem Pillay was Attorney and Conveyancer on the High Court of South Africa from 1967 to 1995 and was appointed Acting Judge on the high Court of South Africa in 1995. The first woman to start a law practice in Natal Province in South Africa in 1967, she served as an attorney in the practice of law in criminal and civil courts providing legal defense for opponents to apartheid. In South Africa she co-founded the Advice Desk for the Abused. She is also co-founder of Equality Now, an international Women’s rights organization based in New York. Ms. Pillay holds a BA and a LLB from Natal University South Africa. She also holds a Master of Law and is Doctor of Juridical Science from Harvard University.

THE POST OF HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

The post of High Commissioner for Human Rights was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1993 to promote and protect the effective enjoyment by all people of all civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights, including the right to development. The General Assembly resolution held that the High Commissioner should function as the UN official with principal responsibility for global human rights efforts. The High Commissioner is appointed by the UN Secretary- General and approved by the General Assembly, with due regard to geographical rotation. Appointments are at the level of Under-Secretary-General, for a fixed term of four years, with the possibility of one renewal for another fixed term of four years. Navanethem Pillay was preceded by Ms. Louise Arbour (2004- 2008), Mr. Sergio Vieira de Mello (2002-2003), Ms. Mary Robinson (1997-2002) and Mr. José Ayala Lasso (1994-1997). Mr. Bertrand G. Ramcharan was Acting High Commissioner from 2003-2004.