Английская Википедия:1954 International Court of Justice judges election
The 1954 International Court of Justice election took place on 7 October 1954 at the Headquarters of the United Nations in New York. In the set of triennial elections, the General Assembly and the Security Council concurrently elect five judges to the Court for nine-year terms, in this case beginning on 6 February 1955. In this particular case, a sixth vacancy was to be filled due to the death of one of the judges.
Background
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), based in The Hague, is one of the principal organs of the United Nations. Also known as the World Court, it adjudicates legal disputes between states, and provides advisory opinions on legal questions submitted by other UN organs or agencies.
The court consists of 15 judges, with five judges elected every three years. (In the case of death or other vacancy, a judge is elected for the remainder of the term.) Judges are required to be independent and impartial; they may not exercise any political or administrative function, and do not act as a representative of their home state.
Elections of members of the Court are governed by articles 2 through 15 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice.
The previous full election was held in 1951.
On 27 November 1953, an election was held in order to fill the occasional vacancy following the resignation of the Soviet judge Sergei Golunsky. In a nearly unanimous vote, Fyodor Kozhevnikov, also of USSR, was elected for the remainder of Golunsky's term.[1] [2]
On 30 November 1953, the Indian judge B.N. Rau died. The election to fill this occasional vacancy was scheduled to coincide with the regular 1954 election of five members.
The composition of the Court prior to the 1954 elections was thus as follows:
| Judge | Term starts / renewed |
Term ends |
|---|---|---|
| Vacancy - Шаблон:Flagicon Benegal Narsing Rau (India) | 1952 | 1961; died 1953 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Alejandro Álvarez (Chile) | 1946 | 1955 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Jules Basdevant (France) | 1946 | 1955 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Jose Gustavo Guerrero (El Salvador) | 1946 | 1955 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Arnold McNair (United Kingdom) | 1946 | 1955 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Levi Carneiro (Brazil) | 1952 [3] | 1955 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Abdel Hamid Badawi Pasha (Egypt) | 1946, 1949 | 1958 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Hsu Mo (Republic of China)[4] | 1946, 1949 | 1958 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon John Read (Canada) | 1946, 1949 | 1958 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Bohdan Winiarski (Poland) | 1946, 1949 | 1958 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Milovan Zoričić (Yugoslavia) | 1946, 1949 | 1958 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Enrique Armand-Ugón (Uruguay) | 1952 | 1961 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Green Hackworth (United States) | 1946, 1952 | 1961 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Helge Klæstad (Norway) | 1946, 1952 | 1961 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Fyodor Ivanovich Kozhevnikov (USSR) | 1953 [3] | 1961 |
Accordingly, the 1954 election saw the seat of the deceased Judge Rau to be filled as an occasional vacancy for the remainder of his term, and, technically in a separate election, the seats of Judges Álvarez, Basdevant, Guerrero, McNair and Carneiro were to be contested.
Election procedure
The General Assembly and the Security Council proceed, independently of one another, to elect five members of the Court (or one member, if the election is held in order to fill an occasional vacancy).
To be elected, a candidate must obtain an absolute majority of votes both in the General Assembly and in the Security Council. At the time, 32 votes constituted an absolute majority in the General Assembly and 6 votes constituted an absolute majority in the Security Council (with no distinction being made between permanent and non-permanent members of the Security Council).
When five candidates have obtained the required majority in one of the organs, the president of that organ notifies the president of the other organ of the names of the five candidates. The president of the latter does not communicate such names to the members of that organ until that organ itself has given five candidates the required majority of votes.
After both the General Assembly and the Security Council have produced a list of five names that received an absolute majority of the votes, the two lists are compared. Any candidate appearing on both lists is elected. But if fewer than five candidates have been thus elected, the two organs proceed, again independently of one another, at a second meeting and, if necessary, a third meeting to elect candidates by further ballots for seats remaining vacant, the results again being compared after the required number of candidates have obtained an absolute majority in each organ.
If after the third meeting, one or more seats still remain unfilled, the General Assembly and the Security Council may form a joint conference consisting of six members, three appointed by each organ, in order to elect a candidate to fill the remaining seat(s). This option had never been used prior to the 1954 elections, and would never be used up to now.
Candidates
Qualifications
Article 2 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice provides that judges shall be elected "from among persons of high moral character, who possess the qualifications required in their respective countries for appointment to the highest judicial offices, or are jurisconsults of recognized competence in international law".
Nomination procedure
All States parties to the Statute of the ICJ had the right to propose candidates. Nominations of candidates for election to the ICJ are made by a group consisting of the members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), designated by that State. For this purpose, members of the PCA act in "national groups" (i.e. all the PCA members from any individual state). (In the case of UN member states not represented in the PCA, the state in question may select up to four individuals to be its "national group" for the purpose of nominating candidates to the ICJ). Every such "national group" may nominate up to four candidates, not more than two of whom shall be of their own nationality. Before making these nominations, each "national group" is recommended to consult its highest court of justice, its legal faculties and schools of law, and its national academies and national sections of international academies devoted to the study of law.
1954 nominees
For the occasional vacancy
The following candidates were nominated for the election in order to fill the seat of the deceased Judge Rau of India: [5]
| Candidates | Nominating national groups |
|---|---|
| Шаблон:Flagicon Ernst S.B. Colov (Denmark) | Denmark |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Ramón Ernesto Cruz Uclés (Honduras) | Honduras |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Thomas Frølund (Denmark) | Denmark |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Luis Garrido Díaz [es] (Mexico) | Honduras |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Fernando Lara Bustamante [es] (Costa Rica) | Costa Rica |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Juan Bautista de Lavalle y García [es] (Peru) | Peru |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Ahmad Matin-Daftari (Iran) | Iran |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Edgar Odio González (Costa Rica) | Costa Rica |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Radhabinod Pal (India) | Bolivia, Ecuador, Egypt, India, Liechtenstein, Mexico, Peru, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Yugoslavia |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Myint Thein (Burma) | Yugoslavia; withdrew |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Charles de Visscher (Belgium) | Egypt, France, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Yugoslavia |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Muhammad Zafarullah Khan (Pakistan) | United States |
For the five regular seats
The following candidates were nominated for the election: [6]
| Candidates | Nominating national groups |
|---|---|
| Шаблон:Flagicon Hildebrando Pompeu Pinto Accioli (Brazil) | Brazil |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Ricardo J. Alfaro (Panama) | Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, Panama, Peru |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Jules Basdevant (France) | Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Egypt, Greece, Japan, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, Yugoslavia |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Choucri Cardahi [fr] | Lebanon |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Ramon Carmona (Venezuela) | Venezuela |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Ernst S.B. Colov (Denmark) | Denmark |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Roberto Córdova (Mexico) | Argentina, Brazil, Republic of China, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela, Yugoslavia |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Thomas Frølund (Denmark) | Denmark |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Jose Gustavo Guerrero (El Salvador) | Republic of China, Cuba, El Salvador, Greece, Haiti, Honduras, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Shigeru Kuriyama [jp] (Japan) | Republic of China, Iran, Japan, United States |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Hersch Lauterpacht (United Kingdom) | Belgium, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States |
| Шаблон:Flagicon George Maridakis [gr] (Greece) | Greece |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Ahmad Matin-Daftari (Iran) | Iran |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Arnold McNair (United Kingdom) | France, Japan, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Yugoslavia; withdrew |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Lucio Moreno Quintana (Argentina) | Argentina, Bolivia, Republic of China, Ecuador, Egypt, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Venezuela, Yugoslavia |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Ricardo Paras | Philippines |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Sture Petrén [sv] [de] (Sweden) | Sweden |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Eduardo Plaza (Venezuela) | Venezuela |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Seni Pramoj (Thailand) | Thailand |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Henri Rolin (Belgium) | Denmark, Iran, Panama |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Raúl Sapena Pastor (Paraguay) | Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Paraguay, Peru |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Georges Sausser-Hall (Switzerland) | Belgium, France, Liechtenstein, Sweden, Switzerland |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Jean Spiropoulos (Greece) | Greece |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Phya Ladpli Thamaprakhan (Thailand) | Thailand |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Pedro Tuason (Philippines) | Philippines |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Modesto Valle (Nicaragua) | Nicaragua |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Jan Hendrik Willem Verzijl [nl] (Netherlands) | Netherlands |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Charles de Visscher (Belgium) | Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, United Kingdom |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Homero Viteri Lafronte (Ecuador) | Ecuador |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Muhammad Zafarullah Khan (Pakistan) | Canada, Egypt, Lebanon, Pakistan |
Results
Filling the occasional vacancy
Candidates that did not receive a single vote in either the General Assembly or the Security Council are not listed.
| Candidates | General Assembly [7] majority = 33 |
Security Council [8] majority = 6 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Шаблон:Flagicon Radhabinod Pal (India) | 32 | 29 | 5 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Muhammad Zafarullah Khan (Pakistan) | 30 | 33 | 6 |
Zafarullah Khan was thus elected to fill the seat that became vacant due to the death of B.N.Rau. This was a departure from the experience of the two previous elections held in order to fill occasional vacancies, whereby the seats were filled by judges of the same nationality as the one of the judge having deceased or resigned. On the other hand, the informal rule was confirmed to the effect that the vacant seat is to be filled by a judge at least from the same region as the one who had vacated the seat (note the large number of candidates from outside Asia who received zero votes at the election).
Filling regular seats
Candidates that did not receive a single vote in either the General Assembly or the Security Council are not listed.
Despite a large number of candidates (which still was lower than at any previous election), the election was relatively uneventful: the same five candidates obtained an absolute majority of votes in the first round of voting in both the General Assembly and the Security Council. They were declared elected to the Court, without a need for further rounds of voting.
Aftermath
The composition of the Court following the election was as follows:
| Judge | Term starts / renewed |
Term ends |
|---|---|---|
| Шаблон:Flagicon Abdel Hamid Badawi Pasha (Egypt) | 1946, 1949 | 1958 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Hsu Mo (Republic of China)[4] | 1946, 1949 | 1958 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon John Read (Canada) | 1946, 1949 | 1958 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Bohdan Winiarski (Poland) | 1946, 1949 | 1958 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Milovan Zoričić (Yugoslavia) | 1946, 1949 | 1958 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Enrique Armand-Ugón (Uruguay) | 1952 | 1961 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Green Hackworth (United States) | 1946, 1952 | 1961 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Helge Klæstad (Norway) | 1946, 1952 | 1961 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Fyodor Ivanovich Kozhevnikov (USSR) | 1953[3] | 1961 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Muhammad Zafarullah Khan (Pakistan) | 1954 [3] | 1961 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Jules Basdevant (France) | 1946, 1955 | 1964 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Jose Gustavo Guerrero (El Salvador) | 1946, 1955 | 1964 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Lucio Moreno Quintana (Argentina) | 1955 | 1964 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Hersch Lauterpacht (United Kingdom) | 1955 | 1964 |
| Шаблон:Flagicon Roberto Córdova (Mexico) | 1955 | 1964 |
The seats of Judges Badawi Pasha, Hsu, Read, Winiarski and Zoričić were to be contested at the 1957 election. However, following the death of Judge Hsu in June 1956, an election to fill the occasional vacancy was held in December 1956.
References
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ 3,0 3,1 3,2 3,3 Elected to fill an occasional vacancy
- ↑ 4,0 4,1 The Chinese seat at the UN was at the time occupied by the Taiwan-based Republic of China. For details, see here
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
