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Five judges
elected to serve on UN International Court of Justice
(New York, November 07,
2008 Ceegaag Online)
Member of Security Council casts
vote to elect new members of the ICJ
6 November 2008 – The General
Assembly and the Security Council today elected five
judges to serve nine-year terms on the International
Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of
the United Nations, starting early next year.
After simultaneous but separate
meetings throughout the day at UN Headquarters in
New York, the Council and the Assembly re-elected two
judges whose terms were due to expire and chose three
new judges to serve on the ICJ, which is based in The
Hague and is also known as the World Court.
Candidates needed to obtain an absolute majority of
votes in the General Assembly (97) and in the Security
Council (eight) to be elected to the
ICJ. Judges serve for nine-year terms and can be
re-elected, and no two of the 15 judges who serve on the
court can be from the same country.
Ronny Abraham of France and Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh,
whose terms had been due to expire on 5 February 2009,
were re-elected after receiving a majority in the first
round of voting in both the Assembly and the Council.
Christopher Greenwood of the United Kingdom and
Brazil’s Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade were also
elected in the first round in both the Assembly and the
Council, and will begin their terms on 6 February next
year.
After several subsequent rounds of voting, Abdulqawi
Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia was also elected, while the
declared candidates Sayeman Bula-Bula (Democratic
Republic of the Congo), Miriam Defensor-Santiago
(Philippines) and Maurice Kamto (Cameroon) were
unsuccessful.
The three new judges replace Rosalyn Higgins of the
United Kingdom (who currently serves as ICJ President),
Gonzalo Parra-Aranguren of Venezuela and Madagascar’s
Raymond Ranjeva, whose terms all expire on 5 February.
The other current members are: Shi Jiuyong (China),
Abdul G. Koroma (Sierra Leone), Thomas Buergenthal
(United States), Hisashi Owada (Japan), Bruno Simma
(Germany), Peter Tomka (Slovakia), Kenneth Keith (New
Zealand), Bernardo Sepúlveda-Amor (Mexico), Mohamed
Bennouna (Morocco) and Leonid Skotnikov (Russia). Their
terms in office expire in either 2012 or 2015.
Established in 1945 under the UN Charter, the ICJ
settles legal disputes between States and gives advisory
opinions on legal questions that have been referred to
it by authorized UN organs or specialized agencies.
Source: UN
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