Human rights should be "put at the heart of government policy" in the new Northern Ireland Assembly, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, has said.
The former president assured human rights activists in Northern Ireland of her continuing support and reiterated the concerns she shares with them about the powers and composition of the new Human Rights Commission, to be set up in January under the Belfast Agreement.
She also paid courtesy calls to the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, the First Minister, Mr David Trimble and the Deputy First Minister, Mr Seamus Mallon.
However, the focus of her visit was to pay tribute to the role of "civil society" in securing with politicians the human rights provisions of the Belfast Agreement.
At a conference organised by the trade union Unison and the Belfast-based human rights group the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ), Mrs Robinson praised the CAJ as "a beacon of light in Northern Ireland's long, hard night".
She also praised Unison for its "long history of developing novel and practical approaches to rights awareness". Later, she extended her best wishes to the Belfast Law Centre at a celebration at Belfast City Hall to mark 21 years of free legal advice and advocacy for unemployed people and refugees. Mrs Robinson heard the stories and hopes of speakers representing women, ethnic minorities, the low paid, disabled and republican and loyalist communities. Mr Billy Mitchell, a community worker from north Belfast, recalled a time when "nationalists lived in the basement and loyalist communities lived on the first floor", but the agreement "gives both the opportunity to move to the top floor".
He called for "unity" across the sectarian divide to "force the Assembly to force the equality agenda through, paragraph by paragraph".
Mrs Robinson noted that, on the 50th anniversary of the UN Resolution on Human Rights, "we need to rededicate ourselves to turning this fine rhetoric into reality - a reality that rings true in the everyday lives of people". She reminded her audience that human rights "are now a duty at the heart of government" and urged the conference to build new relationships and constructive participation" with the new Assembly. Speaking to the Human Rights Centre at Queen's University, Belfast, she specifically highlighted the issue of membership of the North's new Human Rights Commission, saying that "the commission should reflect the composition of the society which it serves". Mrs Robinson pointed out that the review of the commission due after two years, "could review the composition" of its membership. She later said that it was important that the chair and members of the commission be "knowledgeable about human rights" and that they have the "means" to investigate, "that they have the power to discover documents and have witnesses come before them".
"It is precisely their capacity to contribute substantially to the realisation of human rights which makes National Human Rights Commissions so significant," she said.
"Democracy alone is no guarantee that the rights of all persons will be protected - as the history of all democracies clearly demonstrated. Nor are constitutional entrenchment or legislative endorsement of human rights in themselves any guarantee that these rights will not be violated in practice."
National human rights institutions can "enhance promotion and protection of all human rights and in so doing national stability and security - thereby contributing to national development at the same time as promoting and protecting human rights. This applies to developed and developing countries.
"Against this background the new Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission will have an important role to play - including in a number of areas of particular significance not only to this jurisdiction but to the island of Ireland and indeed the entire European region."
Asked at a press conference about the possible extradition of former Chilean president Pinochet after last week's ruling in the House of Lords, she said the ruling was "a very firm assertion that you cannot plead immunity as a former head of state against allegations of gross violations such as torture. That gave a lift to human rights defenders worldwide. My office was inundated with calls from human rights defenders saying `at last', and I link it very much with the establishment of the international criminal court."