Last update - 00:00 07/03/2008
UN human rights chief, Israel critic, to step down after one term
By The Associated Press
The United Nations' top human rights official, who has criticized many countries and been attacked by them in response, said Friday that she is quitting after only one term.
High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour announced that she has told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that she will be unavailable for a second term in the job, which is a magnet for criticism from a broad range of countries.
Israeli Ambassador Itzhak Levanon last year rejected Arbour's criticism of Israeli military action against Palestinians.
"The misguided and deeply disturbing statement by the high commissioner blatantly disregards events on the ground," Levanon said.
A recent mistake by her office inflamed anger among pro-Israel groups. While the office later clarified that Arbour did not endorse a provision in an Arab human rights charter equating Zionism with racism, her original support for the document led to a fury of reaction among pro-Israel websites, with some blog entries calling for her death.
The 61-year-old former Canadian supreme court justice disclosed her decision in a speech to the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council.
"This will be my last annual report as I have informed the secretary-general that I will not seek a second term when my mandate expires at the end of June 2008," Arbour said.
She did not tell the council why she is stepping down, but she told a small group of reporters that she wanted to spend time with her family after four years of constant travel and long hours.
She acknowledged that she found much of the criticism hurtful, but she said, "I am not quitting because of this pressure. On the contrary, I have to resist the temptation to stay to confront it.
"If I have a reaction it is more to say, 'Wait a minute. You can't get rid of me like that.' I have well resisted that temptation."
Zimbabwe Justice Minister Patrick Anthony Chinamasa told the council on Monday that his country "joins others in voicing its discontent with the office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights for repeated dereliction of duty."
Last year Arbour denounced as "shocking" police violence against opposition party members in Zimbabwe.
She has criticized China's use of the death penalty and said the so-called U.S. war on terror was eroding the worldwide ban on torture, noting reports of secret U.S. detention centers.
John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the UN at the time, said it was "inappropriate and illegitimate for an international civil servant to second-guess the conduct that we're engaged in the war on terror, with nothing more as evidence than what she reads in the newspapers."
At the end of a 2006 trip to Russia that included a visit to Chechnya, Arbour expressed serious concern about reports that Chechen security forces use torture.
"I have no doubt that these phenomena are more than mere allegations, and have a considerable basis in reality," Arbour said.
Arbour, however, has been well-regarded by human rights organizations.
"The criticism she receives is a tribute to the good work that she's been doing," said Amnesty International spokesman Peter Splinter. "The criticism she receives is directly proportional to the work she does."
Splinter said Amnesty regretted that she is leaving.
"She's done a very good job. She's brought direction to the office. She's brought resources. She's been outspoken. She's been unflinching in challenging human rights violations in big and powerful countries as well as in countries not so big and not so powerful. It's going to be a real challenge for the secretary-general to replace her."
The high commissioner is appointed by the UN secretary-general and confirmed by the UN General Assembly.
Her announcement came a day after UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Marie Guehenno of France disclosed he would step down this summer, ending eight years on the job.
Arbour said she will continue to serve until the end of her current four-year term on June 30, and will return to Canada on July 1.
"People always say for personal reasons," Arbour said. "It is for personal reasons. I'm not prepared to make a commitment for another four years of this work. I have family. I have found myself working essentially all the time here, traveling, and very far from them. So I know I can't make the same kind of commitment for another four years. I'm going home, basically. It's pretty simple."