A lawyer by profession, Mr. Darusman continues to lead a distinguished career in service to humanity at the local, national and international level.
On the home front, he was a member of Indonesia’s People's Representative Council, representing Bandung for 15 years. In 1994, he became a member of Indonesia’s National Commission on Human Rights, later serving as its Deputy Chairman and, subsequently, Chairman. Following the fall of President Soeharto, he served as the country's Attorney General from 1999 to 2001, following which he was appointed Cabinet Secretary.
International
recognition of his talents began in 2008, when he was asked to participate in
the United Nations inquiry into the assassination of former Pakistan prime
minister, Benazir Bhutto. In 2010, he was part of the three-person panel to
write the Secretary- General’s Panel of Experts on
Accountability in Sri Lanka, which dealt with alleged war crimes during the Sri
Lankan Civil War. Later that year, he was appointed United
Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in North Korea. More
recently, in July 2017, he was appointed as Chair
of an Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar under the UN Human Rights
Council.
Human rights have always been at the forefront of his concerns and together with James Kallman and other internationally-respected human rights advocates, he established the Foundation For International Human Rights Reporting Standards (“FIHRRST”), a non-profit that targets the advancement of human rights in all areas. As Chair, he has helped guide FIHRRST in positive directions, particularly in relation to cooperation with government ministries and departments.
Championing human
rights on a wider front meanwhile, Mr. Darusman is also a member of the Global
Leadership Foundation, a non-profit composed of former heads of government,
senior governmental and international organization officials that seeks to support
democratic leadership and promote good governance worldwide.