Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa of Bahrain is President of the sixty-first General Assembly, the first female to hold the position since 1969 and only the third woman since the founding of the United Nations. A legal pioneer, she was one of the first two women in her country to be admitted to practice law in 1979. Sheikha Haya has had a long and illustrious career in Bahraini national law and international diplomacy.