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UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations High Commission for Human Rights Navanethem Pillay has formally communicated to President Asif Ali Zardari the decision to award the U.N. human rights prize to former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto posthumously, the Pakistan Mission to the U.N. has announced.

Ms Pillay, a former South African judge, conveyed the decision to confer the prestigious United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights for 2008 on Ms. Bhutto in a letter to the Pakistani leader. The prize will be awarded at the plenary meeting of the General Assembly at United Nations Headquarters in New York on Human Rights Day, Dec. 10.

Other winners are: Ms. Louise Arbour, a Canadian who was until recently U.N. High Commissioner for human rights, Ramsey Clark, veteran American human rights defender and rule of law advocate, Dr. Carolyn Gomes, co-founder of Jamaicans for Justice, Dr. Denis Mukwege, a Congolese who has been helping women and girl victims of sexual violence and Human Rights Watch, an international watchdog.

Sr. Dorothy Stang, a Brazilian who defended the human rights of the poor, landless and indigenous populations, was also awarded the prize posthumously. Previous recipients have included Nelson Mandela, Amnesty International, Jimmy Carter, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Reverend Dr. Martin L. King as well as Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan, wife of Pakistan’s first Pakistani prime minister, who was also assassinated in Rawalpindi.

The Human Rights Prize is awarded every five years, in accordance with a resolution of the General Assembly that was adopted in 1966. The prize was first awarded on 10 December 1968, the International Year for Human Rights and the 20th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The recipients of the prize were selected by a Committee comprised of the President of the General Assembly (Chairperson), the President of the Economic and Social Council, the President of the Human Rights Council, the Chairperson of the Commission on the Status of Women, and the Chairperson of the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council.

The committee met in New York with the assistance of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on 21 November 2008, to select the awardees from among 189 nominations received in accordance with the established rules. An official press release describes Benazir Bhutto as an ardent advocate for democracy and for the human rights of the most vulnerable sections of society, particularly women, children and minority rights, noting that she was twice elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.