Ian Martin, from the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, is a human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 activist who has been involved in a number of human rights organisations. He was the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Nepal for the United Nations Mission in Nepal

United Nations Mission in Nepal

Following the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed on 21 November 2006 between the Government of Nepal and the Communist Party of Nepal at the end of the Nepalese Civil War, the United Nations received a request for assistance, and established the political mission United Nations Mission in Nepal ...

 from 2007 to 2009.

He has also been:

• Secretary-General of Amnesty International
  Amnesty International
  Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
  
   from 1986 to 1992.
• Deputy Executive Director of The UN/OAS International Civilian Mission in Haiti
  Haiti
  Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
  
  , 1993 and 1994-5.
• Chief of the UN Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda, 1995-96.
• Special Adviser on Human Rights Field Operations to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1998
• Deputy High Representative for Human Rights in the Office of the High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1998-99.
• Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for the East Timor Popular Consultation and Head of the UN Mission in East Timor May-November, 1999.
• Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, 2000-2001.
• Vice President of the International Center for Transitional Justice, 2002-05.
• Representative in Nepal of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2005-2006.
• Special Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for Timor-Leste, 2006.
• Personal Representative of the Secretary-General in Nepal for support to the peace process, 2006-2007.
• Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of United Nations Mission in Nepal(UNMIN), 2006-2009.
• Head, UN Headquarters Board of Inquiry into certain incidents in the Gaza Strip, 2009.
• Envoy of the UN Secretary-General for the Transitional National Council of Libya in 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/world/africa/06libya.html?_r=1&hp

His writings include Self-Determination in East Timor: the United Nations, the Ballot, and International Intervention.

External links

• Ian Martin's page on the Human Rights Centre.