World

Robinson Resigns Rights Post

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

March 19, 2001 / 8:40 AM EST / CBS

The United Nations is a big bureaucracy, and CBS News Correspondent Sam Litzinger reports apparently it's become too big for the U.N.'s top human rights enforcer.

Mary Robinson is calling it quits as the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"I believe that I can, at this stage, achieve more outside of the constraints that a multi-lateral organization inevitably imposes," she told the opening session of the Human Rights Commission in Geneva Monday. "I will continue to work whole-heartedly for human rights, in the way that I know best: As an advocate."

She departed from the text of her speech to the 53-nation commission to announce her decision.

Robinson said her work had been "extremely challenging and difficult, but at the same time incredibly rewarding."

"I am honored to hold what must be one of the most demanding positions ever created by the international community," added Robinson, only the second person to serve as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

She said that above all, her goal had been "acting as a voice for victims of human rights abuses."

Robinson is a former President of Ireland and lawyer who took up the top U.N. rights job in September 1997

She says she's giving U.N. officials plenty of time to find a replacement: She won't clean out her desk until September, after the World Conference on Racism, which opens Aug. 31 in Durban, South Africa.

Robinson has been increasingly outspoken about human-rights abuses. She isn't saying exactly what she wants to do next.

Robinson conceded she had at times been "an awkward voice — even on occasion for my colleagues within the U.N. as well as for some governments."

But she added: "I make no apology for this."

Diplomats saw her remarks as a reference to having ruffled feathers in major capitals including Beijing and Moscow and supported U.N. investigations into massacres in places including Indonesia's East Timor.

In her speech she pressed the world's governments to fight against racism and racial discrimination as a way of improving rights for people across the world.

Racism was "of the highest significance" because it leads to other human rights violations, she said.

"Racism and xenophobia — manifesting themselves through discrimination and all forms of intolerance — are the wellspring of many of the world's conflicts," said Robinson.

She pointed to the rise of ethnic fighting in Macedonia which, she said, could threaten the stability of the troubled Balkans region.

"During the past month alone, hundreds have been killed in Borneo, Burundi and countless other parts of the world on the grounds of their ethnicity," Robinson added.

Racism leads to a vicious circle of poverty and social exclusion, she said, and is also responsible for the cold welcome given to refugees in many countries.

China, Russia and Israel will be among the countries puunder the spotlight by the commission during its six-week session.