Sixty-sixth General Assembly

Plenary

107^th Meeting (AM)

General Assembly Elects Dalveer Bhandari of India to International Court

 

of Justice, Acting Concurrently with Security Council

 

The General Assembly today, meeting concurrently with the Security Council, elected Dalveer Bhandari of India to a seat on the International Court of Justice for a term beginning immediately through 5 February 2018.

Mr. Bhandari was elected to fill a vacancy on the Court created on 31 December 2011 by the resignation of Judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh of Jordan.

Mr. Bhandari and another candidate, Florentino Feliciano of the Philippines, were nominated by their national groups for today’s election.  Their curricula vitae are contained in document A/66/768-S/2012/213.  Lebanon’s representative had informed the Secretary-General that its national group had decided to withdraw its nomination of Ghaleb Ghanem.

Following a single secret ballot, Mr. Bhandari received in both the General Assembly and the Security Council the absolute majority required to win the vacant seat on the Court. 

Mr. Bhandari graduated in humanities and law from Jodhpur University and obtained a Master’s degree in law from Northwestern University.  He has been a judge in the higher Indian judiciary for more than 20 years.  He currently serves as a senior judge in the Supreme Court of India and has been an executive member of the India Chapter of the International Law Association since 1994. 

Under the terms of the Court’s Statute, a candidate obtaining an absolute majority of votes in both the Assembly and the Council is considered elected.  In the Assembly, 97 votes constitute an absolute majority and all 193 Member States in the Assembly are electors.  In the Security Council, eight votes constitute an absolute majority and no distinction is made between permanent and non-permanent Council members.

The following is the Court’s current composition of 15 judges (terms expire on 5 February of the year in parenthesis):  Ronny Abraham (France) (2018); Mohamed Bennouna (Morocco) (2015); Dalveer Bhandari (India) (2018); Joan E. Donoghue (United States) (2015); Antônio Augusto Cançado Trindade (Brazil) (2018); Giorgio Gaja (Italy) (2021); Christopher Greenwood (United Kingdom) (2018); Kenneth Keith (New Zealand) (2015); Hisashi Owada (Japan) (2021); Bernardo Sepúlveda-Amor (Mexico) (2015); Xue Hanqin (China) (2021); Leonid Skotnikov (Russian Federation (2015); Peter Tomka (Slovakia) (2021); Julia Sebutinde (Uganda) (2021); and Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf (Somalia) (2018).

As the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, the International Court of Justice settles legal disputes between States parties and issues advisory opinions to the Organization and its specialized agencies.  The Court is open to all parties to its Statute, which automatically includes all Member States of the United Nations.  For information on today’s Security Council voting, please see Press Release SC/10629.

Voting Results

Number of ballot papers:	180
Number of invalid ballots:	0
Number of valid ballots:	180
Abstentions:	0
Number of Members voting:	180
Required majority:	97
Number of votes obtained:
Dalveer Bhandari (India)	122
Florentino Feliciano (Philippines)	58

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For information media • not an official record