The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has elected Irishman Michael O'Flaherty to the post of Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights.
Two rounds of voting were required on 23 and 24 January (absolute and simple majority) to decide between him and the two other candidates: Meglena Kuneva from Bulgaria and Manfred Nowak from Austria, who received 70 and 37 votes respectively, compared to 104 for Michael O’Flaherty.
Director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights between 2015 and 2023, he has also served as Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
He will succeed Bosnian Dunja Mijatović, whose non-renewable six-year term of office comes to an end on 31 March.
“The Western Balkans and human rights in Ukraine will not disappear from the agenda”, and “there are many other Member States where things need to be done. You need to be ready to act, react quickly”, she said, referring to the task of her successor when she presented her last annual report to the Assembly on Monday 22 January.
The post of Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights was created in 1999 by the Strasbourg-based organisation to promote awareness of and respect for human rights within its member states. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)