Striving for human security

Abstract

When I started my work as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in February 1991—as the first woman, the first Japanese, and the first academic in that post—the world had just moved away from the rigidly controlled cold war structure. Within weeks of my arrival in Geneva, almost 2 million Iraqi Kurds had fled to Iran and Turkey in the aftermath of the Gulf War. That was the beginning of my turbulent decade as High Commissioner until I left the position in 2000.