Louise Arbour
(1947-)

Canadian Supreme Court Judge
5th United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

2000 Four Freedoms Awards
2008 United Nations Human Rights Prize

2010 North-South Prize

birthdate: February 10
birthplace:
Montréal, Quebec, Canada

QUOTES

We know from worldwide experience that very often when you go beyond the numbers you uncover patterns of sometimes indirect discrimination ... (and) disproportionate application of the harshest penalties, including often the death penalties, on minority groups, people suffering from mental illness,”

“Like many, I deplore the U.S. for their rejection of the International Criminal Court, ... It seems that clearly this debate will carry on.”

“Two phenomena, in my view, are particularly disturbing: One is the prevalence of the use of torture to extract confessions and information and the second one is the intimidation of those who make complaints against public officials.

“There are millions of people all over the world, right now, who are looking to the United Nations for protection and redress against the violation of their rights and deprivation of their freedoms.”

this new era is marked by the dramatic passage from declaring rights to enforcing rights. This effort is focussed on enforcing the most basic and fundamental human rights: the right to life, to physical integrity, and to be protected from rape, torture and extermination. The immense progress in the implementation of international humanitarian law, "the law of war" as it is better known, stems essentially from the leading international instruments of the second half of what we must now call the last century.

Judicial bodies provide a forum for truth telling

You should rightly view this new millennium as one in which you can and should leave your individual and collective marks. Your are, in effect, the beneficiaries of a mixed and ambivalent inheritance. On the one hand, you must recognize the immense progress that has been made, for example, in improving the quality of life in this and other industrialized countries and your duty as guardians of the many accomplishments and successes of the preceding generations. On the other hand, I know that you are alive to the enormous challenges that remain to be met and the responsibility that falls to you and those of your generation to continue to improve the local, national and international communities of which you are members.

 

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