UN Director of Human Rights

I consider it a privilege to have been associated with the United Nations during a large part of my life. I also consider it a learning and rewarding experience to have been in a position of working together with persons, often close colleagues, coming from different ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds.

The main emphasis of my activities within the UN was on human rights. With hindsight, the past 35 years have seen great advances of the UN in this field. An impressive normative framework has been created; supervisory procedures have been developed. I was privileged to be involved in this development in various capacities: as a government delegate, as an expert within the UN Sub-Commission on the Protection of Minorities and the Prevention of Discrimination and later within the UN Commission on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Human Rights Committee, and as a representative of non-governmental organisations (NGOs).