The South African judge Navanethem Pillay has begun her new stint as the UN Commissioner for Human Rights. Pillay spent years defending opponents of the apartheid regime. She went on help to establish the UN war crimes court in Rwanda before becoming a World Court judge in 2003.

UN Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay: “I think that my judicial experience qualifies me to be impartial and independent and to be outspoken, but to be always base myself on factual information. So that’s the experience I come with. And then I come with my heart for victims all over the world, because I suffered as a victim in apartheid South Africa.”

Pillay replaces the departing Canadian Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour.