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Geneva: Louise Arbor, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on Friday confirmed that she would leave her post at the end of June.
Urging her successor to speak out against abuses worldwide despite political pressures Arbor said, "We have to be out there assisting those whose obligation it is to enforce these rights. This does not make the position of High Commissioner more comfortable, more sheltered from criticism, quite the opposite."
Arbour's office has representatives in 47 countries and deploys nearly 400 human rights monitors in UN peacekeeping missions in hotspots such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has to appoint Arbour's successor and the UN General Assembly must endorse his choice.
Arbour's forthright candour aroused criticism from around the world but she brushed this off as "inevitable".
"I am not leaving my job because of these pressures. On the contrary, I have to resist the temptation to stay on to face them," she told reporters.
Arbour, a former Canadian Supreme Court Justice and chief UN war crimes prosecutor, said UN's credibility would stem from its new system of examining the rights record of UN. members. The so-called Universal Periodic Review process gets started next month and will take four years to complete.
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