BIOGRAPHY
Navanethem “Navi” Pillay is from Indian origin and grew up in South Africa during apartheid. She experienced a lot of racism, exclusion and poverty in her youth. In 1995, after the end of apartheid, she became the first non-white female judge in South Africa. She worked for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, including four years as president. In this role she is best known for the judgment that rape and sexual assault in the context of Rwanda could be seen as acts of genocide. In 2008 she was appointed a judge at the International Court in The Hague. She stayed only briefly in this position, because she was appointed as the High Commissioner of the UN Human Rights in 2008.