Navanethem "Navi" Pillay (born 23 September 1941) is the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. A South African of Indian origin, she was the first non-white woman on the High Court of South Africa,and she has also served as a judge of the International Criminal Court and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Her four-year term as High Commissioner for Human Rights began on 1 September 2008.
Pillay was born in 1941 in a poor neighborhood of Durban, Natal Province, Union of South Africa.[1] She is of Tamil descent and her father was a bus driver. She married Gaby Pillay, a lawyer, in January 1965. Supported by her local Indian community with donations, she graduated from the University of Natal with a BA in 1963 and an LLB in 1965.[6] She later attended Harvard Law School, obtaining an LLM in 1982 and a Doctor of Juridical Science degree in 1988. Pillay is the first South African to obtain a doctorate in law from Harvard Law School.
- Navanethem Pillay - High Commissioner for Human Rights, UN
- In 2009, Forbes ranked her as the 64th most powerful woman in the world.
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