'We have a tough task ahead but I will personally exert all my efforts to come up with an objective report that reflects the reality in Libya and convey the voices of victims of human rights violations.'
So stated Asma Khader (left) in an interview appearing in today's Jordan Times. (photo credit)
Khader, a lawyer, rights activist, and former government minister in Jordan, is among 3 persons whom the U.N. Human Rights Council has selected as a commission of inquiry into human rights violations in Libya. The commission was authorized earlier this month; its work will run in tandem with the investigation of the International Criminal Court undertaken pursuant to a separate resolution of the U.N. Security Council. (Prior IntLawGrrls posts available here.)
Chairing the Libya inquiry will be our colleague M. Cherif Bassiouni, Distinguished Research Professor of Law at Chicago's De Paul University and a human rights expert whose U.N. service includes chairing the Security Council's Commission to Investigate War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia.
Completing the three-member panel will be Philippe Kirsch, the Canadian jurist who served as the ICC's 1st President, from 2003 to 2009.
The commission reportedly will begin its work in weeks, with an eye to reporting at the June session of the Human Rights Council.
In the Jordan Times interview, Khader framed her appointment itself as a milestone; in her words, it
'proves that we have eligible experts in the Arab world and that Arab and Jordanian women are qualified to take on such a tough responsibility along with their male peers.'
