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One Woman, 13 Men Elected to UN War Crimes Court - Global Policy Forum - War Crimes Tribunals One Woman, 13 Men Elected
Reuters
to UN War Crimes Court
March 15, 2001Thirteen men and one woman were elected on Wednesday as judges for the UN war crimes court for the former Yugoslavia, following protests over the lack of female candidates and questions about jurists' qualifications. Florence Ndepele Mwachande Mumba, of Zambia, was the sole woman chosen by the 189-member UN General Assembly but only after the seventh ballot and following the withdrawal of three other candidates from sub-Sahara Africa. Eight of the 14 judges elected are current members of the court.
Mumba delivered a landmark verdict last month against three Bosnian Serbs, thereby establishing rape and sexual enslavement as a crime against humanity. Diplomats said the outcome of the vote based less on the qualities of a jurist than on how much lobbying each nation undertook for its candidate. In a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Women's Caucus for Gender Justice, a private group, said it was "appalling" that Mumba was the lone woman among the 25 candidates nominated by their respective countries to vie for the tribunal's 14 positions.
Women's groups for years have stressed the importance of female prosecutors and judges for the court, especially since American Gabrielle Kirk McDonald resigned as president of the tribunal in November 1999.
Elected on Wednesday from the United States was Theodor Meron, an international law expert at New York University. Secretary of State Colin Powell earlier withdrew the Clinton administration's nomination of David Scheffer, the former U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes. Controversies did not end there. Shortly before the vote Mexico told the assembly that the tribunal violated the U.N. Charter and Russia called for its abolition, saying it was anti-Serb and that such courts should be left to the new Balkan states.
In addition, deputy prosecutor of the court Graham Blewitt last week said none of the new candidates nominated by their respective countries were experienced criminal trial judges. He told the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London it would be a disaster to have court's chambers dominated by academics or civil court judges.
The tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, based at The Hague, was created by the UN Security Council in 1993 to try individuals responsible for atrocities during the Balkan wars. The four-year terms of its original 11 judges expired in November 1997, when another election was held. In 1998 the UN General Assembly chose three more jurists for a new, third trial chamber. The terms of all 14 judges expire in November.
An absolute majority of 96 was needed to elect or reelect a judge among the assembly's 189 members in a secret ballot.Twelve jurists were chosen on the first ballot including Claude Jorda of France, the current president of the court, who received 113 votes. Others were Fausto Pocar of Italy (130); David Hunt of Australia (122), Patrick Robinson of Jamaica (120); Meron of the United States (119); Carmel Agius of Malta (118); Wolfgang Schomburg of Germany (118); Liu Daqun of China (116); Richard May of Britain (115); Alphonsus Martinus Maria Orie of the Netherlands (114); Ogon Kwon of South Korea (109); and Mohammed Shahabuddeen of Guyana (105).
An Egyptian jurist Mohammed el Abassi Elhahdi was elected on the fourth ballot with 105 votes and Mumba then filled the 14th slot after seven ballots and eight hours of voting.
The tribunal was established to try those responsible for a lengthy list of crimes, including massacres, rapes, expulsions and bombing of civilians in Bosnia and Croatia following the 1991 breakup of Yugoslavia.
Russian delegate Vladimir Tarabrin said the tribunal was anti-Serb, operated under sealed indictment and used NATO forces to capture suspects, sometimes resulting in the loss of lives. Instead, the newly independent countries in the Balkans should be permitted to conduct their own trials, he said.
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