Ms. Ilze Brands Kehris of Latvia, a senior research fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute from 2016-2019, will become the next Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights and Head of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in New York. She succeeds Andrew Gilmour of the United Kingdom.
Ms. Brands Kehris has served as an independent Expert Member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, the treaty body monitoring the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, since 2017.
She extensive expertise in political science, conflict prevention and human rights, with a specialization in minority rights.