AFP: Robinson heads for China, E Timor and Cambodia

GENEVA, Aug 15 (AFP) - The UN' top human rights official Mary Robinson begins a week-long visit to Asia Sunday, including her seventh trip to China, plus visits to Cambodia and East Timor, a UN statement said on Thursday.

Robinson, the UN high commissioner for human rights, is due in Beijing on Sunday where she will open a workshop for judges and lawyers.

"The workshop will launch an important new area of human rights cooperation between her Office (OHCHR) and Chinese authorities," her office said in the statement.

The former Irish president, who steps down from her UN post on September 11 after five years, will also "take stock" of the implementation of a memorandum of understanding concluded with China in November 2000.

The accord covered technical cooperation in the area of human rights between Robinson' Office and China and marked the first formal agreement between the two on cooperation on human rights.

Robinson is also scheduled to have talks with a number of government ministers and meet Cambodia' King Norodom Sianouk while in the Chinese capital, according to the statement.

She will then travel to the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh from August 20 until 22, where her visit is set to focus on judicial and legal reform, human trafficking and economic and social rights.

The UN decided in February to pull out of negotiations aimed at trying surviving leaders of Pol Pot' 1975-79 regime for genocide and crimes against humanity.

The UN cited Cambodia' inability to hold objective and impartial hearings as the reason for its withdrawal. […]

Robinson is being replaced as high commissioner by Brazilian UN veteran Sergio Vieira de Mello.