The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs Mary Robinson, is to receive a major US award next month for her contribution towards international understanding.
The former president of Ireland will be presented with the 1999 J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding at a ceremony in the State Department in Washington on October 8th.
The prize includes a $50,000 award provided by the CocaCola Foundation. Mrs Robinson has announced she will donate the prize to support activities of the UN Decade for Human Rights Education.
The award is to recognise individuals who have made "extraordinary contributions towards bringing peoples, cultures or nations to greater understanding of others".
Previous recipients include the former South African president, Mr Nelson Mandela, President Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic and the former US president, Mr Jimmy Carter.
The former US ambassador to Korea, Mr James T. Laney, who is chairman of the international selection committee for the Fulbright Prize, said Mrs Robinson "is emblematic of a new era not only in Irish but also in world affairs".