Nepal’s Melissa Upreti has been appointed to the Human Rights Council’s (HRC) Working Group on discrimination against women in law and in practice.

The Working Group is a Special Procedure of the HRC which is the highest political human rights body within the UN system. The HRC is a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly and the Working Group is a mechanism created by the Human Rights Council to fulfil its mandate to promote gender equality and address discrimination against women globally.

Upreti, a Columbia Law School graduate, is a human rights lawyer and has spent over 15 years in building strategic partnerships and capacity in Asia to promote gender equality. She is currently a Reproductive and Sexual Health Law fellow at the International Reproductive and Sexual Health Programme in the University of Toronto Faculty of Law.

She will serve as an independent legal expert at the HRC representing the Asia Pacific region for a three-year term.

Joaquín Alexander Maza Martelli, president of the HRC on Monday released the list of appointments, which will be formally adopted during the next session of the UN General Assembly in New York next month.

Other appointees are from Zambia, France, Ethiopia, Croatia and Australia.