Johannesburg  - South Africa on Friday welcomed the nomination by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon of South African judge Navanethem Pillay for the position of UN high commissioner for human rights.

Foreign Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said South Africa congratulated Pillay on being nominated to replace outgoing high commissioner, Canada's Louise Arbour, whose term ended at the end of June.

While Pillay has yet to be discussed by the UN General Assembly at a session on Monday, her accession to the top rights post is seen as a formality following extensive discussions at the UN level.

The role of the high commissioner is to defend human rights worldwide.

Pillay, an ethnic Tamil, was born in South Africa's third-largest city of Durban in 1941 to a bus driver father.

She was the first woman to start a law practice in what was then Natal province in 1967 and in 1995 became the first woman of colour to serve in the High Court.

As an attorney she defended opponents of the apartheid regime, exposing the torture and solitary confinement of people detained by police for resisting white minority rule. Her husband and partner in her law firm was detained, at one point, under the Terrorism Act.

Pillay also established rights for prisoners on Robben Island, where former president Nelson Mandela spent 18 years in prison.

The UN in a statement said Pillay had "outstanding credentials" in human rights and justice. Ban said he expected that Pillay "will preserve the independence of her office and will maintain effective working relations with the General Assembly and the Human Rights Council."

Since 2003 Pillay has served as a judge on the International Criminal Court in The Hague. But she is best known for her time as judge president of the UN International Criminal Court Tribunal for Rwanda, where she played an important part in landmark decisions, including the definition of rape as a weapon of war and genocide.

The mother of two daughters has worked extensively on issues of equality and is co-founder of the New York-based Equality Now women's rights organization.

At a Judicial Service Commission interview for the Constitutional Court, South Africa's top court, in 1994, Pillay referred to the chauvinism she had encountered from male clients and colleagues as a young lawyer.

"I remember that when I was handling my first big ANC security trial they referred to me as girl, the Zulu word "intombi", and as the trial progressed I found that they had switched to woman." (dpa)