GENEVA, March 18: UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, long a thorn in the side of the major powers for her outspoken views, said on Monday she would not seek a fresh term when her appointment ends in September.
She declined to comment on suggestions by some rights groups that she had been pushed into the decision by Washington’s suspected opposition to her continuing in the job.
“I am aware that there is strong support (for me) in the human rights community. I am not going to comment on individual countries. They can be asked themselves,” she said in answer to a question at a news conference.
“This will be the last year I will address the Commission as High Commissioner,” she told the 53-nation body as it prepared to review human rights hotspots ranging from the Israeli- Palestinian conflict to Chechnya and Zimbabwe.
Robinson, 57, who surprised UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last year by saying she was leaving, agreed then to stay for 12 more months at Annan’s insistence.
In recent months there had been speculation that Robinson, who has criticized Russia’s military campaign against Muslims in Chechnya and aspects of the US-led war in Afghanistan, was interested in staying at her post.
She hinted as much at the news conference.
“If it had been felt that it was in any way necessary for me to stay, then perhaps. But I prefer not to speculate,” she said, adding she had not lobbied for support for a further extension.
Washington, for one, was thought to oppose any extension of her mandate after she expressed concern over the high number of civilian casualties in US air strikes in Afghanistan and criticized the treatment of Taliban and Al Qaeda prisoners.
Robinson acknowledged her views were unwelcome to some countries, but said she had been guided by advice she received from Annan on her appointment in 1997. “Stay an outsider within the United Nations,” she quoted him as telling her.
PAYING THE PRICE: “She has been excellent. If she decides to leave, it should be seen as a personal decision,” a German Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
Human rights groups were disappointed but not surprised.
“She will be a hard act to follow,” said a spokeswoman for Amnesty International.
Reed Brody, advocacy director of the US-based Human Rights Watch, said the lawyer and mother-of-three was paying the price for willingness to stand up to Washington and Moscow.
“We will be sad to see her go. She set a standard of candour and energy for future Human Rights Commissioners,” he said.
In her valedictory speech to the Commission, Robinson again raised concerns about Chechnya, the struggle to impose the rule of law in Afghanistan and the Middle East.
She reiterated her call for international observers to be sent to the occupied territories to act as “a deterrent to the violations of human rights.”
But the single most dramatic event since she last reported to the Commission in March last year had been the Sept 11 suicide plane hijacking, Robinson said.
She described the attacks as a “crime against humanity” but said the reaction to them also threatened to undermine international standards of human rights.—Reuters