The Elders

Mary Robinson, the first woman President of Ireland (1990-1997) and more recently United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002), has been a human rights advocate for most of her life. She is currently founder and president of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative. Born Mary Bourke in Ballina, County Mayo (1944), the daughter of two physicians, she was educated at the University of Dublin (Trinity College), King’s Inns Dublin and Harvard Law School, to which she won a fellowship in 1967.

As an academic (Trinity College Law Faculty 1968-1990), legislator (Senator 1969-1989) and barrister (1967-1990; Senior Counsel 1980, English Bar 1973), Mary Robinson has always sought to use law as an instrument for social change, arguing landmark cases before the European Court of Human Rights as well as in the Irish courts and the European Court in Luxembourg. A committed European, she has also served on expert European Community and Irish parliamentary committees. More

See Mary Robinson's speech at the announcement