By IRNA
London : The British government has expressed regret over the announcement by Louise Arbour to resign as UN human rights commissioner at the end of her first four-year term in June.
“I’m sorry to hear that Louise Arbour has decided not to serve a second term as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She has done a remarkable job in pushing forward the work of her office,” Foreign Office Minister Lord Malloch-Brown said.
“Her energy, dynamism and personal standing will be a loss to the UN and human rights community as a whole. She combines judgement, humour, and passion in ways that make her a formidable champion of human rights,” Malloch-Brown said.
Arbour, a 61-year old former Canadian Supreme Court justice, told the session of the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Friday that she will resign at the end of June to spend more time with her family.
She said that critical attacks on her office, from countries including the United States, have become intolerable and undermine the credibility of her office and the entire UN.
“Such statements demean the human rights council and betray the good faith effort of all those working in the United Nations on very difficult and divisive issues,” the commissioner told the session.
During her tenure, she drew rebuke from the US for saying that the American-led “war on terror” was eroding the worldwide ban on torture.
Arbour was also critical of Israel during its month-long invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 2006, suggesting that charges of war may be warranted.