The International Court of Justice (ICJ) today elected a new President and Vice-President.
Both new leaders will each serve a term of three years.
Judge Peter Tomka (Slovakia) was elected as President and Judge Bernardo Sepulveda-Amor (Mexico) as Vice-President of the tribunal.
The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands. Established in 1945, the ICJ settles legal disputes between States and gives advisory opinions on legal questions that have been referred to it by other authorized UN organs. It currently has 13 cases on its docket.
The Security Council today decided that an election to fill the vacancy on the International Court of Justice will take place on 27th April 2012.
According to the Court’s Statute, its judges must be chosen by coordinated actions of both the Council and the General Assembly, with the date of elections determined by the Council.
Judges are chosen on the basis of their qualifications, not their nationality, but no two judges can be from the same country.
The judges at the ICJ today also elected the members of the chamber of summary procedure, the budgetary and administrative committee and two other committees of the court.
Prior to joining the ICJ, Tomka was a Slovak diplomat.
In 2011 Tomka was re-elected to a second nine-year term on the ICJ by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council. His term now expires on 5 February 2021.
