In ICJ, it’s down to the wire for India, U.K

In ICJ, it’s down to the wire for India, U.K

Context

• The 12th round of voting to break the deadlock between India’s Dalveer Bhandari and Britain’s Christopher Greenwood for re-election to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), will be a test of the depth and durability of New Delhi’s international partnerships.

Majority required

• The winning candidate needs to get a majority in both the General Assembly (GA) and the Security Council (SC), but 11 rounds of voting so far ended with India winning in the former and the U.K. winning in the latter.

Historical challenge

• It is the first time in UN history that the candidature of a permanent member of the Security Council is challenged in the way it has been by India.
• In the last round of voting at the SC, the U.K. got nine votes against five for India, with one abstention.
• The U.K. has indicated to members of the SC that it plans to invoke a clause that has never been used to suspend voting and move to a conference mechanism of the GA and the SC, if the first round of voting does not yield a clear outcome.
• The conference mechanism involves three members of the GA and three of the SC jointly selecting the winner. India has told member countries that this would amount to bypassing the desire of an overwhelming majority.
• The first is the headcount in the GA. India has ended up at 121 in the last round and is trying to push it up. If India gets two-thirds, at 128, India wins.
• The second battle line is in the SC, which will vote simultaneously. India hopes that its votes will increase from five.
• More than six members of the SC have been assuring India their votes, but the count indicates that not all of them are keeping their promise. The 10 non-permanent members of the SC are Bolivia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Senegal, Sweden, Ukraine and Uruguay.

Conference mechanism

• The third line of battle is if the U.K. presses for conference, which will also have to be approved by the SC.
• In this case, the voting will be public, and members who are now playing a double game will not be able to do that.
• They will have to publicly take a position on whether or not they support the U.K.’s demand for suspension of voting.
• Though the U.K. has nine votes in favour of its candidate, it is unclear if it has those nine votes to stall the voting process itself in an open voting. The U.K.’s strategy will depend on its own assessment of how it stands on this count.
• This will be a moment for reckoning for India as well; as it will show the extent of the support it gets from various countries.