In September 2014, Navanethem (Navi) Pillay will finish her term as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Since her appointment in 2008, she has been a principled and dedicated advocate for universal human rights, the protection of human rights defenders, accountability for perpetrators of human rights violations, and access to justice for victims. She has encouraged her staff to speak out and has done so herself courageously. Unanimity about her performance should not be expected – for that the topics she had to deal with are too controversial – but the human rights world generally has seen her as a ‘champion’ and one of them.
To get some idea of the scope of her involvement in favour of human rights defenders, see some of my 20 previous posts: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/tag/navi-pillay/
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 