The Diplomat
UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Gillian Triggs received the ‘Ruth Bader Ginsburg’ Medal of Honour yesterday in Madrid at a ceremony presided over by His Majesty the King and organised by the World Jurist Association (WJA).
The ‘Ruth Bader Ginsburg’ Medal of Honour is a new international award established by the World Jurist Association and presented for the first time this year.
The ceremony honoured eight distinguished women jurists and leaders from around the world: Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank; Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza, Vice-President of the International Criminal Court; Maite Oronoz, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico; Navi Pillay, Justice of the Supreme Court of South Africa; Rosario Silva de Lapuerta, Vice-President of the European Court of Justice; Sujata Manohar, retired Justice of the Supreme Court of India; and Young Hye Kim, Senior Judge, Commissioner of the National Human Rights Commission.
The World Association of Jurists awards the ‘Ruth Bader Ginsburg’ Medal of Honour in recognition of inspirational women jurists who have fought to uphold and strengthen the rule of law and have helped consolidate advances in societies in the area of gender equality.
Gillian Triggs is Assistant to the UN Secretary-General and Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at UNHCR. She took up her duties in September 2019. She is a lawyer specialising in public international law and, in her role, oversees UNHCR’s protection work in support of millions of refugees, asylum seekers and forcibly displaced persons in their own countries, as well as those who are stateless.
A dual British-Australian national, Gillian Triggs has held a number of leadership positions, including Director of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law in London and President of the Administrative Tribunal of the Asian Development Bank.
