UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan Friday nominated Canadian Supreme Court Justice Louis Arbour to fill the post of U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard said the nomination was submitted by Annan to the U.N. General Assembly for approval before he left on a visit to Japan. If approved as expected, the 57-year-old jurist, who served as prosecutor of U.N. war crimes tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, would resign from the court to serve in the Geneva-based post.
Arbour would succeed Sergio Vieira de Mello, killed in the truck bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad last August while serving a four-month stint as Annan's special representative to Iraq.
In nominating Arbour, "Annan has chosen a skilled jurist and principled advocate," said New York-based Human Rights Watch.
"She combines the human rights experience, international standing and moral stature needed to confront the worst and most powerful abusers," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of the non-governmental agency. "She combines the human rights experience, international standing and moral stature needed to confront the worst and most powerful abusers."
