The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is a United Nations agency that works to promote and protect the human rights that are guaranteed under international law and stipulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The office was established by the UN General Assembly on 20 December 1993 in the wake of the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights.
The office is headed by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, who co-ordinates human rights activities throughout the UN System and supervises the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. The current High Commissioner is South African lawyer Navanethem Pillay, whose four-year term began on 1 September 2008.
As of 2008, the agency had a budget of US$120m and 1,000 employees based in Geneva. It is an Ex-Officio member of the Committee of the United Nations Development Group.
Read more about Office Of The United Nations High Commissioner For Human Rights: High Commissioners For Human Rights
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—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
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—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
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—John Paxton (1911–1985)
“Some of the offers that have come to me would never have come if I had not been President. That means these people are trying to hire not Calvin Coolidge, but a former President of the United States. I can’t make that kind of use of the office.... I can’t do anything that might take away from the Presidency any of its dignity, or any of the faith people have in it.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
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—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
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—Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1815–1902, U.S. women’s rights activist, author, editor. The Revolution (August 13, 1868)