United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on Friday praised UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour for her dedication to human rights around the world after she announced she would resign in June. “She has fulfilled her four-year mandate with immense dedication, and I have been most impressed by her extraordinary courage, energy and integrity in speaking out forcefully on human rights, which is among the UN's most important mandates,” Ban said in a press release on Friday. In her work as UN human rights chief, Arbor was criticised by several member states, including Zimbabwe in response to her condemnation of police violence, China in response to her condemnation of the death penalty, and from the United States over her opposition to its policy in the so-called war on terror, the AP reported Friday. “She has never hesitated to incur the criticism of States or other entities by highlighting the victims of abuses, and the inadequacies of legal systems everywhere,” Ban's statement said. Arbour was widely recognized for her work in The Hague in 1999 when she indicted former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes, the AP reported.
