UNITED NATIONS: Austrian career UN official Volker Turk has been appointed the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. He was appointed by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
He received the Assembly's endorsement shortly after Guterres nominated him on Thursday to succeed Michelle Bachelet, who resigned last month after serving out her term.
The appointment was made while UN General Secretary Antonio Guterres was on his way to meet with victims of Pakistan's floods.
Turk, an Austrian, previously served as the Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at the UN office for refugees, where he worked on matters relating to human rights, Guterres's spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.
"Turk has committed his long and distinguished career to strengthen fundamental human rights, particularly the international protection of some of the world's most vulnerable people - refugees and stateless persons." After Sergio Vieira de Mello, he will be the second high commissioner to have worked for the agency for refugees.
Turk will be taking over a position that must respond to the realities of the human rights situation while facing constant oppositional demands from governments and campaigners.
His first test will be handling the impact from the divisive human rights report Bachelet issued minutes before leaving office on China's treatment of its Uyghur Muslin minority after its release had been delayed as Beijing sought to have it suppressed.
Beijing has strongly refuted the report that suggested China may have committed "crimes against humanity." Bachelet has also been at war with India; she has sparked outrage with her comments endorsing farmers' rights activists in their demonstrations last year, questioning New Delhi's policies and actions in Kashmir, and criticising how the media and activists are treated.
Turk followed Guterres to the UN Secretariat where he became the Under-Secretary-General for Policy and was regarded as a member of his inner circle. Turk worked closely with Guterres when he was the High Commissioner for Refugees. In the words of Dujarric, Guterres "has had the principled attitude of giving the High Commissioner for Human Rights the space and the independence they need to adequately perform their mandate (and) that will not alter in the slightest when Volker Turk officially takes office." He joined the UN in 1991 as a junior officer and progressed through the ranks, mostly working at the refugees agency. He had a PhD from Vienna University for a research on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
He had performed fieldwork for the organisation in Asia, Europe, and Africa. Turk was urged to act as an impartial watchdog by the US and human rights organisations.
"At a time when these rights are increasingly under attack, the high commissioner's responsibility must be to call out human rights violations and abuses wherever they occur, and to serve as an independent, impartial, and unwavering champion for human rights everywhere," said US Permanent Representative Linda Thomas-Greenfield. "The incoming UN High Commissioner for Human Rights must be willing to call out powerful states like China, the United States, and its allies for severe rights breaches," Human Rights Watch stated. "His voice in defence of the victims of human rights atrocities around the world will need to be loud and clear," said Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International.
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