Gillian Triggs takes up role as new UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for international protection

UNHCR is pleased to announce that Gillian Triggs of Australia has today taken up her role in Geneva, Switzerland as UNHCR’s new Assistant High Commissioner for Protection.

Triggs, who until recently was Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow and Emeritus Professor at the University of Melbourne and President of the Australian Human Rights Commission, succeeds Volker Türk in the role. Türk left UNHCR in July to assume the position of Assistant Secretary-General for Strategic Coordination at UN headquarters in New York. 

In her new role Triggs will oversee UNHCR’s protection work for millions of refugees, internally displaced, stateless and other people of concern.

The Deputy High Commissioner, Assistant High Commissioner for Operations, and Assistant High Commissioner for Protection together comprise the top three positions supporting the High Commissioner in the exercise of his mandate.

“I am delighted that Gillian is joining us, and at such a crucial moment as we prepare for December’s Global Refugee Forum,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. “With today’s high levels of forced displacement, the need for solutions and an accompanying robust international protection framework has seldom mattered so much and for so many lives. We warmly welcome her at UNHCR.”

For additional background see: https://www.unhcr.org/news/press/2019/8/5d4d13254/gillian-triggs-appointed-unhcrs-assistant-high-commissioner-protection.html