New U.N. rights chief will speak out for victims
By Robert Evans
September 1, 2008 
Reuters
Original Source: https://mail.hudsonny.org/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL1453332.html \t _blank http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL1453332.html
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations' new High Commissioner for Human Rights, South African judge Navanathem Pillay, said on Monday she would speak out firmly for victims of rights abuses around the world -- and against the abusers.
She also pledged to try to make an upcoming U.N. anti-racism conference, surrounded in controversy and threats of boycott, a success by convincing as many countries as possible to attend.
 The High Commissioner should focus fearlessly on protecting the interests of victims all over the world, and that does involve speaking up against the violators as well, she told reporters invited to her office on her first day in the job.
I come with my heart for the victims ... I suffered as a victim in apartheid South Africa, she said.
The role of U.N. rights chief is to be outspoken but always to base oneself on facts, declared Pillay, a bus driver's daughter who become the first non-white woman to serve on South Africa's High Court Bench.
Succeeding Canadian Louise Arbour, who stepped down in July at the end of her four-year term, Pillay takes up the post at a critical juncture for the U.N. rights system 60 years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Many Western countries have voiced disappointment with the performance of the Human Rights Council, created two years ago to replaced the largely discredited rights Commission. Still, some developing countries say the Council is on the right path.
Next April's anti-racism summit in Geneva, known as Durban-2, is the follow-up to a 2001 Durban conference on fighting racism and xenophobia. The United and Israel abandoned that meeting saying it had become a forum for anti-semitism.
Canada has indicated it will not take part in the Geneva summit, which may be a major test of Pillay's diplomatic skills.
The United States, Britain, the Netherlands and France have also suggested they could might stay away if condemnation of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is likely to eclipse all other issues like abuses in Sudan's Darfur region.
Asked on Monday how she would handle the boycott warnings, Pillay -- who studied at Natal and Harvard universities before opening her law practice in 1967 -- replied: My instinct would be to get as many countries as possible to attend.
She would try hard to convince doubters -- who included some very important countries -- of the value of participating, noting that many controversial issues would be raised there.
Among those are a bid by some Islamic countries to have Durban-2 call on U.N. members to specify that free speech should not be used to offend religious feeling, a move some see as a potential clamp on the rights to free speech and expression.
Asked if she believed human rights extended to religions or similar constructs, she replied simply: In my experience, I have always focused on individual rights.