Mary Robinson - High Commissioner For Human Rights

High Commissioner For Human Rights

Robinson became the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on 12 September 1997, resigning the Presidency a few weeks early with the approval of Irish political parties in order to take up the post. Media reports suggested that she had been head-hunted for the post by Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan to assume an advocacy as opposed to administrative role, in other words to become a public campaigner outlining principles rather than the previous implementational and consensus-building model. The belief was that the post had ceased to be seen as the voice of general principles and had become largely bureaucratic. Robinson's role was to set the human rights agenda within the organisation and internationally, refocusing its appeal.

In November 1997, still new to her post, Robinson delivered the Romanes Lecture in Oxford on the topic of "Realizing Human Rights"; she spoke of the "daunting challenge" ahead of her, and how she intended to set about her task. She concluded the lecture with words from The Golden Bough: "If fate has called you, the bough will come easily, and of its own accord. Otherwise, no matter how much strength you muster, you never will manage to quell it or cut it down with the toughest of blades."

Robinson was the first High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit Tibet, making her trip in 1998. During her tenure she criticised the Irish system of permits for non-EU immigrants as similar to "bonded labour" and criticised the United States' use of capital punishment.

In 2001, Robinson chaired the Asia Regional Preparatory Meeting for the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and related intolerances, which was held in Tehran, Iran. At this meeting, the representatives of neither the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, a Jewish group, nor the Baha'i International Community were permitted to attend. Robinson wore a headscarf at the meeting, because the Iranians enforced an edict that all women attending the conference must wear a headscarf. Women who did not wear the headscarf were criticized, and Robinson said that it "played into the hands of religious conservatives."

Though she had initially announced her intention to serve a single four-year period, she extended the term by a year following an appeal from Annan, allowing her to preside over the 2001 World Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa, as Secretary-General. The conference drew widespread criticis, as did Robinson. Former US Congressman Tom Lantos said, "To many of us present at the events at Durban, it is clear that much of the responsibility for the debacle rests on the shoulders of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, who, in her role as secretary-general of the conference, failed to provide the leadership needed to keep the conference on track."

Robinson's posting as High Commissioner ended in 2002, after sustained pressure from the United States led her to declare she was no longer able to continue her work. Robinson had criticised the US for violating human rights in its war on terrorism and the World Conference against Racism was widely condemned in the US for its perceived anti-semitism. Michael Rubin even went so far as to suggest in a tongue-in-cheek article that she be tried for war crimes for presiding over "an intellectual pogrom against Jews and Israel." United States Congressman Tom Lantos faulted her for neglecting "to provide the leadership to keep the conference on track" and accused her of shouldering "much of the responsibility for the debacle." On 9 November 2006 in Yogyakarta, she attended the international Conference, then she became one of 29 signators of the Yogyakarta Principles, adopted for protection of LGBT rights by International Human Rights Law.