COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ON HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA

Biographies of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the DPRK

Michael Donald Kirby (Australia, chairman) is a retired judge, jurist, and academic who is a former Justice of the High Court of Australia, serving from 1996 to 2009. Among the many posts he held was President of the International Commission of Jurists (1995-98); Member of the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee (1996); President of the Court of Appeal of Solomon Islands (1995-1996); Member of the World Health Organisation’s Global Commission on AIDS (1988-1991); and Special Representative of UN Secretary-General for Cambodia (1994-96). His special concerns have included human rights, the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and the impact of science and technology on society and its laws. In the past he has been involved in issues raised by HIV/AIDS, including sexuality and the law.

Marzuki Darusman (Indonesia) is currently the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as designated in August 2010 by the UN Human Rights Council. He is a member of the International Independent Group of Eminent Persons, and has served in various capacities at the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission. In 2010, Mr. Darusman was assigned as Chair of the UN Secretary General’s Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka. In 2009, Mr. Darusman was appointed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to a three-member UN Commission of Inquiry to investigate the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Mr. Marzuki Darusman was the Attorney General of the Republic of Indonesia for the period 1999 to 2001. Mr. Darusman is a Law graduate from the Catholic University of Parahyangan Bandung, Indonesia and has received an Honorary Doctorate in Law from the same university.

Sonja Biserko (Serbia) is founder and president of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia. She has written extensively on the wars in the former Yugoslavia and war crimes including on the Srebrenica genocide, the fall of Vukovar, and accounts of the trials of Slobodan Milosevic and Vojislav Seselj. She was a founding member of a European movement in Yugoslavia and the Centre for Anti-War Action in the Belgrade Forum for International Relations. She is senior fellow in the United States Institute of Peace and in 1994 she received the Human Rights Award of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in New York. In 2005 she was one of 1,000 women in the group 1,000 Women for Peace nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In 2009 she was awarded the 2009 Human Rights Prize of the City of Weimar (Germany) jointly with Jestina Mukoko. In 2010 she was awarded the Human Rights Award of the University of Oslo. Ms. Biserko holds a degree from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Economics.

For information about the Human Rights Council: http://www.ohchr.org/hrc
Media contact: Ron Redmond, Tel. +82 10 5677 0467, email: coidprkmedia@ohchr.org

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