AJCongress’ Women’s Division Encouraged by
New UN Human Rights Commissioner

August 1, 2008 — The Women’s Division of the American Jewish Congress is encouraged by the election of Navanethem Pillay to serve as the next United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 

Judge Pillay’s appointment by U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was endorsed by the General Assembly on Monday, July 28. 

“Secretary General Ban deserves praise not only for naming Judge Pillay, but for picking her over the two leading alternative candidates, both of whom have demonstrated strong anti-Israel bias,” said Meryl L. Frank, President of the Women’s Division of AJCongress. 

Judge Pillay most recently served as an appeals chamber judge on the International Criminal Court at The Hague and previously was Presiding Judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.  She was the first woman to start a law practice in Natal Provence, South Africa, a defense attorney for apartheid prisoners, and the first non-white woman to serve as a High Court Judge in South Africa. 

Judge Pillay co-founded Equality Now, a New York-based international organization that works to protect the human rights of women and girls worldwide.  Its primary concerns are domestic violence, rape, female genital mutilation, reproductive freedom, trafficking of women, and equal access to economic opportunity and political participation. 

“Throughout her illustrious career, Judge Pillay has been a powerful voice for women’s rights around the world,” Ms. Frank said.  “She has been at the center of the struggle to end violence and discrimination against women and girls.  We hope the international human rights community now starts to focus on the problems of women and religious minorities, and on oppressive governments and dissidents, rather than continuing its virtually exclusive concentration on allegations of Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians.”