Split term between India, UK, suggests Thailand envoy

Split term between India, UK, suggests Thailand envoy

Context

• Thailand’s ambassador to India Chutintorn Gongsakdi has suggested a unique way out for the elections of a judge at the International Court of Justice by splitting the term of the judge between India and the UK.

Suggestions

• The ambassador advised that the term should be split into six years each, adding one year each for good measure.
• The deadlock was broken with the New Zealand for World Trade Organization’s director-general by splitting the 4-year term by 3 years each.

Election of the ICJ judge

• At stake is the election of the judge at the ICJ, which is hearing the crucial Kulbhushan Jadhav case, and the Indian nominee, Dalveer Bhandari, a former judge from the Supreme Court of India, is standing for re-election.
• Bhandari will be competing with UK’s candidate Christopher Greenwood, and there have been six rounds of voting. While Bhandari has got a simple majority at the UNGA, Greenwood has led the contest at the UNSC.

The procedure of ICJ election

• According to UN rules, the one who gets absolute majority in both the UNSC and UNGA is the winner.
• Since there has been a fractured verdict, India is hoping to get two-third majority at the UNGA and claim “moral victory”.

The joint conference

• UK is pressing for the convening of a “joint conference” between the UNGA and UNSC under Article 12 (1) of the ICJ statute.
• A joint conference would be a meeting between six countries – three each from the UNGA and UNSC. As per the ICJ statute, the joint conference has full freedom to decide on a name for the court and need not confine itself to official candidates.
• But, how these countries will be selected is not clear, since the ICJ rules are silent on the issue. This option has been last used in 1921.