Mary Robinson, Irish lawyer and politician, 7th President of Ireland
Mary Therese Winifred Robinson (Irish: Máire Mhic Róibín; née Bourke; born 21 May 1944) was the 7th president of Ireland, serving from December 1990 to September 1997, the first woman to hold this office. Prior to her election, Robinson served seven terms as a senator in Seanad Éireann between 1969 and 1989, and one as a local councillor on Dublin Corporation from 1979 to 1983. Primarily an independent politician, she was briefly affiliated with the Labour Party. Along with being the first woman elected president, following the 1990 presidential election Robinson also became the first independent candidate to win the presidency, as well as being the first president in the office's history not to have had the support of Fianna Fáil. Following her time as president, Robinson was made United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 1997 to 2002.
Robinson is widely regarded as having had a transformative effect on Ireland, having extensively and successfully campaigned on several liberalising issues both as a senator and as a lawyer. Robinson was involved in the decriminalisation of homosexuality, the legalisation of contraception, the legalisation of divorce, enabling women to sit on juries, and securing the right to legal aid in civil legal cases in Ireland. She was Ireland's most popular president, at one point having a 93% approval rating among the electorate.
During her tenure as High Commissioner, she visited Tibet (1998), the first High Commissioner to have done so; she criticised Ireland's immigration policy; and criticised the use of capital punishment in the United States. She extended her intended single four-year term as High Commissioner by one year to preside over the World Conference against Racism 2001 in Durban, South Africa: the conference proved controversial due to a draft document which equated Zionism with racism. Amid rising pressure from the United States, Robinson resigned her post in September 2002.
After leaving the United Nations in 2002, Robinson formed Realizing Rights: the Ethical Globalization Initiative, which came to a planned end at the end of 2010. Robinson served as Oxfam's honorary president from 2002 until she stepped down in 2012 She returned to live in Ireland at the end of 2010, and has since founded The Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice. She served as Chancellor of the University of Dublin from 1998 until 2019.
Robinson remains active in campaigning globally on issues of civil rights. She sits on the board of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, and is a member of the Foundation's Ibrahim Prize Committee. She is also a B Team Leader, and was named an Extraordinary Professor in the Centre for Human Rights and the Centre for Sexualities, AIDS and Gender at the University of Pretoria. She has been the honorary president of the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation EIUC since 2005. She is a former Chair of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and is also a founding member and chair of the Council of Women World Leaders. She was a member of the European members of the Trilateral Commission.