Six New Judges Elected to the ICC

Last week, the States Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, meeting at the Tenth Session of the Assembly of States Parties, elected six new judges to the International Criminal Court (see here). They also formally approved the election of Fatou Bensouda as the next ICC Prosecutor (on which see here). The new judges will make up a third of the judges of the ICC. The election procedure for electing judges to the ICC is even more complicated than the procedure for elections to the International Court of Justice. Like the ICJ, the ICC Statute provides (Art. 36(8)) that there should be representation of the principal legal systems of the world. However, that provision also specifies that there should be equitable geographical representation and a fair representation of female and male judges. In addition, there are separate lists of judges with competence in criminal law (list A) and of judges with competence in international law (list B) and a set proportion of judges of the court have to be from list A or B (see Art. 36(4)). Also, unlike the ICJ where candidates need an absolute majority of votes in the United Nations General Assembly and Scurity Council (on the meaning of this, see previous discussion in the comments to this post), candidates for the ICC need a two-thirds majority of States Parties present and voting. All of this means that someone needs to be keeping tabs to ensure that all of these rules are respected. See this document for the rather involved procedure for the elections held last week. In the elections just held there were 15 rounds of voting (see detailed results here) !!

One thing is that is absent at the ICC when compared with the ICJ is the convention that there is a judge from each of the permanent members of the UN Security Council. Of course, only two members of the Council are parties to the ICC Statute (the UK and France). Even so, there is no presumption that judges of that nationality will be elected. In the latest elections, the UK candidate was elected but the French candidate was not. He was outvoted in round 14 by the candidate from Nigeria and then withdrew.

The new judges are:

– CARMONA, Anthony Thomas Aquinas
Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (Trinidad and Tobago),
list A, male

– DEFENSOR-SANTIAGO, Miriam
  Group of Asia-Pacific States (Philippines), list B, female

– EBOE-OSUJI, Chile
  Group of African States (Nigeria), list A, male

– FREMR, Robert
  Group of Eastern European States (Czech Republic), list A, male

– HERRERA CARBUCCIA, Olga Venecia
  Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (Dominican Republic),
list A, female

– MORRISON, Howard
  Group of Western European and Other States (United Kingdom),
list A, male