Before leaving his post in 2018, the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, made a series of critical remarks, both publicly and internally, regarding what he considered weakening of the integrity and effectiveness of the UN in its human rights mandate. Zeid’s comments highlighted retrogressive tendencies making the task of a strong and independent High Commissioner exceedingly difficult. The post of High Commissioner, established in 1994 following decades of advocacy, to give a high level voice to human rights promotion and protection as well as to manage a secretariat for most UN human rights functions, has enjoyed mostly robust and effective leadership by its post-holders. Any High Commissioner faces challenge inherent to the job in balancing the functions of diplomat, human rights advocate for “the voiceless”, and agency manager working with an insufficient and patently unfair budgetary allotment. The new High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, will have her work cut out, as she faces an apparent retreat from prioritizing human rights, particularly by some States that previously championed them; ambivalence by a wider UN bureaucracy; and a wave of authoritarian populist leaders and movements around the globes that take a hostile view to the human rights paradigm. The new High Commissioner would do well to keep her energies squarely focused on independently tackling urgent substantive and possibly existential human rights challenges, rather than any project of administrative restructuring of the OHCHR, even as she may pursue a working methodology that is distinct from the approach of her predecessors.

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全球强烈反对时代的联合国人权事务高级专员

在 2018 年卸任之前，即将卸任的联合国人权事务高级专员扎伊德·拉阿德·侯赛因在公开和内部发表了一系列批评性言论，他认为削弱了联合国在其工作中的完整性和有效性。人权任务。扎伊德的评论突出了倒退的趋势，这使得强大和独立的高级专员的任务变得极其困难。高级专员一职于 1994 年经过数十年的宣传而设立，旨在为促进和保护人权发表高水平的声音，并管理联合国大多数人权职能的秘书处，其职位在很大程度上得到了强有力和有效的领导。 -持有人。任何高级专员都面临着平衡外交官、“无言者”人权倡导者、和机构经理处理不足且明显不公平的预算拨款。新任高级专员米歇尔·巴切莱特 (Michelle Bachelet) 的工作将被削减，因为她面临着将人权置于优先地位的明显退步，尤其是一些以前支持人权的国家；更广泛的联合国官僚机构的矛盾；以及全球范围内对人权范式持敌对态度的一波专制民粹主义领导人和运动。新任高级专员最好将她的精力完全集中在独立应对紧迫的实质性和可能存在的人权挑战上，而不是人权高专办的任何行政重组项目，即使她可能会寻求一种不同于这种方法的工作方法她的前任。