page_title: Zeid Raad Al Hussein
section_title: United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
hierarchical_section_title: Zeid Raad Al Hussein / United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
caption_attribution_description: Foreign Office Minister Hugo Swire meeting Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in London, 12 October 2015.
context_page_description: Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al Hussein is the Perry World House Professor of the Practice of Law and Human Rights at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a former Jordanian diplomat who also served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2014 to 2018. He played a central role in the establishment of the International Criminal Court, and was elected the first president of the Assembly of State Parties of the International Criminal Court in September 2002. He also served as a political affairs officer in UNPROFOR in the former Yugoslavia from 1994 to 1996.
  A career diplomat, he served as Jordan's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2000 until 2007, when he was appointed as Jordan's Ambassador to the United States and non-resident Ambassador to Mexico. He was re-appointed Permanent Representative in 2010 and served until 2014, resigning shortly before his selection as High Commissioner.
  In 2019, Zeid was invited to join The Elders, an independent group of global leaders working for peace, justice and human rights founded by Nelson Mandela.
context_section_description: On 8 September 2014, in his maiden speech to the UN's 47-member Human Rights Council at the body's 27th session in Geneva, Zeid strongly criticized the so-called Islamic State group, saying it was trying to create a "house of blood". He called on the international community to combat the spread of the movement in Iraq and Syria, asking, "[Do] they believe they (ISIS) are acting courageously, barbarically slaughtering captives?" The massacres, beheadings, rape and torture "reveal only what a Takfiri (i.e. 'excommunicator' in Arabic) state would look like, should this movement actually try to govern in the future", he said. "It would be a harsh, mean-spirited house of blood, where no shade would be offered, nor shelter given to any non-Takfiri in their midst". In a speech at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Commissioner said that lessons from the Holocaust provide a key to understanding ISIS. He said: "If we have learned anything from our collective history, it is this: Scrambling only for ourselves, our people, our political or religious ideology, or for our own kind will only scramble it all — eventually, sometimes horrifyingly so — for everyone." According to press accounts, he said "The solution he proposed for avoiding atrocities such as the Holocaust was human rights education for every child in the world, beginning before the age of nine. 'In this way, from Catholic parochial schools to the most secular public institutions, and indeed Islamic madrassahs, children could learn — even in kindergarten — and experience the fundamental human rights values of equality, justice and respect.'"
  The newly appointed Commissioner also focused on other troubled areas of the world, including Venezuela, Ukraine and Gaza. His press statements are available on the website of his office.
  He has reported to the Security Council on Iraq and other countries, and spoken of the need for greater moral courage to ensure equality and human rights for all: "Children need to learn what bigotry and chauvinism are, and the evil they can produce. They need to learn that blind obedience can be exploited by authority figures for wicked ends. They should also learn that they are not exceptional because of where they were born, how they look, what passport they carry, or the social class, caste or creed of their parents; they should learn that no-one is intrinsically superior to her or his fellow human beings ... Sadly, they must learn that the Zeppelin Field, the shadow of Buchenwald, the glint of the machete and the horror of life today in Syria, Iraq, South Sudan, Central African Republic and elsewhere – wherever we live, they are never that far away."
  He said that the United States had an obligation under international law to prosecute all those responsible for CIA torture, from those who carried out interrogations to policy-makers and higher-ups who gave the orders.
  On 17 April 2015, Zeid placed the field operations director at the OHCHR, Anders Kompass, under administrative leave after Kompass provided French authorities with an internal UN report detailing sexual abuse of children by French UN peacekeeping troops in the Central African Republic. The decision was reversed on 5 May 2015 after being found "prima facie unlawful" by the United Nations Dispute Tribunal.
  On 27 April of that year, Zeid criticized a column in The Sun written by Katie Hopkins for using the term "cockroaches" to refer to migrants, describing it as akin to propaganda used by the Nazis and the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide against their victims.
  In September 2015, Zeid criticized Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen. His report implied that the Saudi-led military coalition may be guilty of war crimes. In October 2016, he said: "The Human Rights Council’s inability to take decisive action by setting up an international investigation is contributing to a climate of impunity, and violations continue to occur on a regular basis. Such outrageous attacks cannot be allowed to continue."
  In August 2016, Zeid decried the post-coup purges in Turkey. Zeid said that whil
caption: British Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister Hugo Swire meeting Zeid in London, 12 October 2015
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