By Lunda Mulongo Lem’s Pierre·Staff writer·10 October 2026·5 min read
The South African jurist, a former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, chaired the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel.
On Nelson Mandela's recommendation, she joined the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), where she served from 1995 to 2003, presiding over it from 1999 to 2003.
On 2 September 1998, she was one of the three judges who handed down the first conviction for the crime of "genocide" ever delivered by an international tribunal, against Jean-Paul Akayesu, the mayor of Taba.
Her work at the ICTR was decisive in securing recognition of rape and sexual violence as war crimes and as instruments of genocide.
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