Pinheiro to Receive UN Human Rights Award

September 21, 2012

Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Syria and a leading human rights expert, will receive the Leo Nevas Human Rights Award at the UN's Global Leadership Awards Dinner in New York next month. Pinheiro, who is adjunct professor of international studies at the Institute, currently chairs a group tasked by the UN Human Rights Council with uncovering human rights abuses in Syria.

The group released a report this week describing a staggering range of violations committed by both sides in the current conflict. Speaking to the Associated Press, Pinheiro said that "Gross violations of human rights have grown in number, in pace and in scale. Civilians, many of them children, are bearing the brunt of the spiraling violence."

Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu will also be honored at the October dinner, where he will receive the Champion for Global Change Award.