On Inside Geneva this week: part four of our series marking the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Imogen Foulkes talks to Navi Pillay, she served as UN Human Rights Commissioner from 2008 to 2014, she started life in racially segregated South Africa.\xa0
\xa0"We grew up under apartheid and we\u2019re realised there\u2019s something very unfair here. Our teachers were afraid to talk about\u2026you know they would teach us democracy in Greece, but not why don\u2019t we have democracy in South Africa."
\xa0She became the first woman of colour to have her own legal practice in South Africa.\xa0
\xa0"It was so lonely, and so scary. I had very little choice, because I went looking for jobs after I\u2019d qualified, at law firms, they were mainly white law firms, and they would say \u2018we can\u2019t \u2013 you\u2019re a black person, so we can\u2019t have our white secretaries taking instructions from you.\u2019\u2019\xa0
She served on the international tribunal for the Rwandan genocide \u2013 but hesitated when Ban Ki Moon asked her to become UN Human Rights Commissioner.\xa0
\xa0"You have to respond to a call that\u2019s made to you, a trust that people place in you. So if you ask me what moved me from where I wanted to go to this, it was the secretary general saying \u2018we need you now\u2019.\u2019\xa0
Today, she believes the universal declaration on human rights is as relevant as ever \u2013 as long as we use it.\xa0
"No state has distanced itself from that treaty. So I see hope in that and I feel these are the tools that civil society has. You have the law, now push for implementation."
Join Imogen Foulkes on the Inside Geneva podcast to find out more.\xa0
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