UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday appointed Gillian Triggs of Australia as assistant secretary-general to serve as the Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Triggs will succeed Volker Turk of Austria who has been appointed as Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Coordination in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General, according to a press note from the UN chief's office.
Triggs, who recently served a 5-year term as president of the Australian Human Rights Commission, brings to the position several decades of professional experience as an academic, practicing lawyer, advocate and public policy expert.
A barrister and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria, she is currently vice-chancellor's fellow at the University of Melbourne, president of the Asian Development Bank Administrative Tribunal, and holder of several other eminent appointments.
An expert in international law, Triggs has an extensive history of dedicated service to human rights and the refugee cause in Australia, the Asia-Pacific Region and globally, said the note.
She was in international commercial law practice and professor of law at the University of Melbourne. She then served as director of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, and as dean of International Law at the University of Sydney.
Triggs holds a bachelor's degree and a doctorate in law from the University of Melbourne, and a master's degree in law from Southern Methodist University, Texas.
