Sept 1 (Reuters) - South African judge Navanethem Pillay became the United Nations' new human rights chief on Monday.

Pillay, who succeeded outspoken Canadian Louise Arbour, is a former judge at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Here are some facts about Pillay:

* Pillay, born in a poor Indian neighbourhood of Durban in 1941, is a lawyer from South Africa's ethnic Tamil minority.

* The daughter of a bus driver, she became a lawyer and represented many opponents of the apartheid regime.

* U.N. diplomats and officials said the United States initially resisted appointing her due to concerns about her views on abortion among other issues but eventually dropped its opposition.

* Pillay studied at Natal University and Harvard. She opened her law practice in 1967, the first woman to do so in Natal Province.

* In 1995 she was appointed acting judge of the High Court of South Africa by the government of Nelson Mandela, the first non-white woman and first attorney to serve on the Bench.

* Pillay was elected by the United Nations to be a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where she served for eight years, including four years as president.

* In February 2003, Pillay was elected to be one of the 18 Judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC), based in The Hague and served on its Appeals Chamber.

Sources: Reuters/ICC

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