Germany: Former president and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, was dubbed a "modern Joan of Arc" for her human rights work and awarded the Otto Hahn Peace Medal in Berlin last night.
The award was presented to her by the Berlin-Brandenburg branch of the German Association of the United Nations for her "outstanding service to peace and human understanding".
"Your job is a calling but your calling is a means to an end. Your real call is the highest calling: to bring about justice and to improve the lives of people," said Mr Klaus Wowereit, the mayor of Berlin.
Her "taboo-breaking to bring about change" as President of Ireland and during her time at the UN ensured she was the "right person in the right place and the right time".
Mr Johannes Rau, the German President, said "the choice couldn't have been better" for the award. Warm congratulations came from the Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schröder, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, the President, Mrs McAleese and Mr Pat Cox, the President of the European Council.
Mrs Robinson said she was "overwhelmed" by the good wishes and said she was determined to continue her human rights work through the "Ethical Globalization Initiative" in New York.
"My contribution is simple: a world connected by communications and transportaion must also be connected by a core of shared values and I see human rights as central, a rules of the road for ethical globalisation that aims to benefit all of the world's people," she said.
She said "unprecedented progress" had been made in recent years at creating wider global acceptance and basic standards of human rights, which was no longer a matter of "vague words" but an easily accountable matter through international treaties. But it has never been more urgent to create a rights-based approach to global challenges, she said, and to pursue an "ethical globalisation that ensures respect for human rights of all people, counters negative consequences and spreads benefits for all".
Mrs Robinson called on international governments "to take the human rights framework out of its box" and for it to become as much a self-evident part of the brief of finance and trade ministers as well as social affairs ministers.
Human rights remained as important as ever with the emphasis on security in a post-September 11th world, Mrs Robinson said.