Mary Robinson
President, Ireland, 1990 - 1997

Mary Robinson was born on May 21, 1944 and was educated at Trinity College and King’s Inns in Dublin and at Harvard University in the United States. At Trinity College she served as Reid Professor of penal legislation, constitutional and criminal law, and the law of evidence (1969–75) and lecturer in European Community law (1975–90). She was elected to the Royal Irish Academy and was a member of the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva (1987–90). She sat in the Seanad (upper chamber of Parliament) for the Trinity College constituency (1969–89) and served as Labour Party whip until resigning from the party over the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985. Robinson became Ireland’s first woman president in 1990. She was the first head of state to visit Somalia after it suffered from civil war and famine in 1992 and the first to visit Rwanda after the genocide in 1994. Shortly before her term as president expired, she took up the post of UNHCHR. As high commissioner, Robinson changed the priorities of her office to emphasize the promotion of human rights at the national and regional levels; she was the first UNHCHR to visit China, and she also helped to improve the monitoring of human rights in Kosovo. In 2001 Robinson served as secretarygeneral of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in Durban, South Africa. Robinson founded the nongovernmental organization Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, in 2002 and was chair of the Council of Women World Leaders, 2003-2009.