‘UK using dirty politics to beat India’s candidate in ICJ election’
UNITEDNATIONS: The UK is trying to “misuse” its UN Security Council membership by pushing for a joint conference mechanism, which was last used 96 years ago, in the election to the last seat in the World Court on Monday in which India’s Dalveer Bhandari is a front-runner, diplomatic sources said.
Bhandari and Britain’s Christopher Greenwood are locked in a neck-and-neck fight for re-election to the ICJ. One-third of the court’s 15-member bench are elected every three years for a nine-year term, elections for which are held separately but simultaneously in the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council in New York. Britain is aggressively pushing in the UN Security Council for resorting to the joint conference mechanism against which there exists an unequivocal legal opinion, sources said.
The “dirty politics” being played by India’s former colonial ruler, as one UN insider put it, has sent a sense of “uneasiness” among other members of the UNSC, many of whom are aware of the long-term implications of a move to ignore the voice of the majority of the United Nations General Assembly.
In all previous incidents, the candidate getting majority in the General Assembly has been elected a judge of The Haguebased International Court of Justice.
Bhandari, 70, has support of nearly two-thirds of 193 UN members. Greenwood, who has already served one nine-year term in ICJ, is trailing behind more than 50 votes in the General Assembly. However, he received nine against five for Bhandari in the Security Council.