Annan selects Swiss legal professor to uphold rights of internally displaced

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed a legal professor from Switzerland with a long record of human rights advocacy as his Representative on the human rights of the world's 24.6 million internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Walter Kälin, a professor of constitutional and international public law at Bern University, will act as an independent expert, investigating and reporting on the treatment of IDPs around the world.

Announcing the appointment today in a statement, Mr. Annan said Mr. Kälin will work closely with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and the Division on Internal Displacement in the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

A current member of the UN Human Rights Committee, Mr. Kälin also helped draft the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. From 1991 to 1992 he was Special Rapporteur on human rights in Kuwait under Iraqi occupation.

In his new post Mr. Kälin essentially replaces Francis M. Deng, who served as the Secretary-General's Special Representative on IDPs from 1992 until his mandate expired in July this year.

In a report earlier this year to the UN Commission on Human Rights, Mr. Deng said the estimated number of IDPs has remained relatively flat over the past year at about 24.6 million.

But the situation was far from static; more than 3 million people, mostly Africans, became internally displaced last year, but another 3 million were able to return to their places of origin.