“This is significant recognition of Italy’s efforts toward the advancement and protection of human rights around the world which, precisely within the framework of the United Nations, has led in recent months to major results in the areas of religious freedom and the rights of women and children”. Minister for Foreign Affairs Giulio Terzi commented with “deep satisfaction” on the appointment by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon of Flavia Pansieri as Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights.
In her over 30-year career with the UN Pansieri has held important posts in various of the organisation’s agencies and offices in numerous countries around the world, which have included China, Yemen, Bangladesh and Myanmar. She has also worked in both Vienna and New York, where she now takes up her post in an agency tasked with “representing the world’s commitment to the universal ideals of human dignity”.
A few months ago in New York, on an historic day in the global advancement of fundamental human rights, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution, for which Italy had battled on the front lines, on universal ban on female genital mutilation and the death penalty. In February, Minister Terzi co-chaired an international workshop with his Jordanian colleague Nasser Judeh, on freedom of worship. “We intend to pursue our commitment to the assertion of human rights around the world”, Terzi concluded, “with ever greater conviction and determination”.
