As soon as he took office on Monday, 1 April, the Council of Europe’s new Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O’Flaherty, an Irish national, announced that he would be making Ukraine his first visit.
After declaring that he intended “to inject a human rights perspective into the greatest challenges facing our societies”, he explained that he saw “nothing more urgent than addressing the human rights consequences of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which has caused terrible human suffering and destruction”.
He lists the climate crisis, the governance of artificial intelligence, freedom of expression, migration, and the rise of hate speech, including antisemitism and anti-Muslim attacks, as ranking among the other areas where he intends to work to strengthen fundamental rights.
Defending the rights of marginalised populations—the Roma and Travellers in particular—will likewise be at the heart of the mandate of the new commissioner for human rights, who also wants “to focus on” youth, socio-economic rights, and human rights defenders while continuing to keep the implementation, by the Council of Europe’s member states, of judgments handed down by the European Court of Human Rights in sight.
Elected by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe last January based on a list submitted by the Committee of Ministers, Mr O’Flaherty had served as director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights from 2015 to December 2023.
Starting a six-year term, he has succeeded Bosnian Dunja Mijatović, to whom he expressed his “deep appreciation and respect”. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)