UNITED NATIONS, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Jurist Yuji Iwasawa of Japan was elected judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Friday to succeed retired judge Hisashi Owada from Japan.
Iwasawa won 15 out of 15 votes at the Security Council and 184 out of 189 votes at the General Assembly. Five member states did not turn out to vote at the General Assembly.
Iwasawa's term of office starts immediately on Friday and ends on Feb. 5, 2021.
Iwasawa, 64, is a professor of international law at the University of Tokyo. Since 2017, he has served as chair of the UN Human Rights Committee, a UN body of 18 experts that meets three times a year to oversee compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. He has been a member of the committee since 2007.
He has been president of the Japanese Society of International Law since 2016.
Owada, the father of Crown Princess Masako of Japan, retired from the ICJ at the age of 85. He offered to resign in February 2018 and his resignation became officially effective on June 7, 2018. It is believed that Owada's retirement was partly because of his age, and partly because his daughter will become Japanese empress next year with the planned abdication of Emperor Akihito and Crown Prince Naruhito's enthronement.
Under the Statute of the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, the election of ICJ judges is through secret balloting at the Security Council and the General Assembly. A candidate has to obtain absolute majority in both chambers to get elected. Voting in the two chambers must be held concurrently but separately.
The Hague-based ICJ has 15 judges elected to nine-year terms of office. To ensure a degree of continuity, five judges are elected every three years. Judges are eligible for re-election.
Should a judge die or resign during his or her term of office, a special election is held to choose a judge to fill the unexpired part of the term.
The 15 judges must come from 15 different countries. The court as a whole must represent the main forms of civilization and the principal legal systems of the world.
