The 189-member UN General Assembly officially extended for another year today the term of Mrs Mary Robinson as UN high commissioner for human rights.
Approval was by consensus without a vote or debate.
Secretary-General MR Kofi Annan had proposed that Mr Robinson - who in a surprise move had resigned her post in March, only to change her mind two weeks later - be allowed to stay on the job until September 11th, 2002, a year after her current four-year term expires.
Mrs Robinson had announced her intention to resign on March 20th, just two days before Mr Annan himself announced he was seeking a second five-year term as secretary-general, adding to the pressures on him from key UN members over senior posts.
In Mrs obinson's case, many nations were thought eager to get a less outspoken rights chief after she publicly criticized a slew of abuses around the world, including Russia's treatment of Chechens and China's handling of dissidents.
Nevertheless, many governments and world leaders expressed regret at her initial decision to leave the United Nations. Chief among them was French President Mr Jacques Chirac, who was credited with persuading her to change her mind,
Mr Chirac praised Mrs Robinson publicly and backed her complaint that her Geneva-based agency was grossly under funded at £21 million a year from the United Nations' $1 billion administrative budget.
As human rights commissioner, Mrs Robinson sets up investigations of abuses around the world and publicly speaks out on her own when she believes violations have occurred. The 53-member human rights commission meets each spring to decide on which countries her agency should investigate.