United Nations: South African judge Navanethem Pillay, who currently serves on the International Criminal Court (ICC), is to be named the new UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She will succeed Louise Arbour, UN sources said.UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon will announce Pillay's nomination shortly. His decision has to be endorsed by the 192-member General Assembly.

Pillay, who was born in 1941 of Tamil descent, has served as an ICC appeals chamber judge since 2003 and was picked from a short list that also included prominent Pakistani lawyer and human rights activist Hila Jilani and Argentine human rights lawyer Juan Mendez.

Pillay also served as a judge in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

She led the landmark decisions defining rape as an institutionalised weapon of war and a crime of genocide.