Special Meeting of States Parties

to Law of Sea Convention

1^st Meeting (AM)

SPECIAL MEETING OF STATES PARTIES ELECTS JUDGE TO FILL VACANCY

ON INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE LAW OF THE SEA

 

A Special Meeting of the States Parties to the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea this morning elected Jin-Hyun Paik ( Republic of Korea) as a judge of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

Judge Paik will replace his compatriot, Judge Choon-Ho Park, who died on 12 November 2008, serving out the remainder of her term, which ends on 30 September 2014.  The Special Meeting observed a minute of silence in memory of Judge Park.

Until his election, the new judge had served as Director of the Institute of International Affairs at Seoul National University in the Republic of Korea, and President of the Korean Council on the United Nations System.  From 2006 to the present, he was Director of the Haesung Institute for Ethics in International Affairs.

With two thirds of the States parties constituting a quorum for the election, Judge Paik was elected by secret ballot, having received 113 votes.  According to the Statute of the Tribunal, the balloting continues until a candidate obtains, in one or more ballots, “the largest number of votes and a two-thirds majority of the States parties present and voting, provided that such a majority includes a majority of the States parties”.

A second candidate, Nugroho Wisnumurti ( Indonesia), received 42 votes.

The results of the voting were as follows:  number of ballot papers received -– 155; invalid ballots -– 0; valid ballots -– 155; abstentions -– 0; number of Member States present and voting -– 155; required majority -– 104; the majority that is not less than the majority of States parties -- 79.

At the outset of the Special Meeting, the States parties adopted the agenda, as contained in document SPLOS/L.58.  It also decided, for the purposes of conducting today’s business, to retain the composition of its Bureau, including the President, Yuriy Sergeyev ( Ukraine), and the Credentials Committee, as elected by the Eighteenth Meeting of States Parties.  However, with Dean Bialek, Vice-President ( Australia), no longer in Government service, the Group of Western and Other States endorsed his compatriot Katy Lin as his replacement.

Other Vice-Presidents serving during the Eighteenth Meeting were Paul Badji ( Senegal), Ana Cristina Rodriguez Pineda ( Guatemala) and Shazelina Zainul Abidin ( Malaysia).  Members of the Credentials Committee were Brazil, Greece, Indonesia, Mongolia, Morocco, New Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa and Suriname, with Miriam Angela Mac Intosh (Suriname) serving as Chair.

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For information media • not an official record