Winning Prized ICJ Seat by India – Three Firsts for India’s International Diplomacy

International Court of Justice is a UN body having 15 judges – five of the 15 judges being elected every three years through secret ballot jointly by the UN General Assembly (GA) and the UN Security Council (SC) and the winning candidate is required a majority in both GA and SC in simultaneous voting. Elected judges will hold office for a period of 9 years. On Bhandari’s expiry of 9 years as a judge in ICJ, India had again nominated him for the second time  as a judge to be elected on India’s behalf.

 After five rounds of simultaneous voting by the Security Council and the General Assembly in New York, four judges from Brazil, Lebanon, France and Somalia were chosen for the bench out of 6 judges – leaving the UK’s candidate Sir Christopher Greenwood and the India’s candidate Dalveer Bhandari for the fifth judge to be decided by further rounds of voting. 

At the 12th round, India’s candidate Bhandari received 183 of the 193 votes in GA and secured all the 15 votes in the SC.  Just before the 12th round of voting, the UK tried to invoke a clause of the conference mechanism of the GA and the SC under article 12(1) of the ICJ statute wherein three members of the GA and three of the SC will jointly select the winner.

 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 and this option has been last used in 1921. But this option of UK had fell flat because India had strategically portrayed the GA as the voice of the people and the SC as the voice of the global elite – indicating that India had got more support in GA more than halfway mark of 193 members, while UK had polled much ahead of India by 6 votes – securing 9 votes out of 15 in SC – but polled very much less in GA – less than halfway mark. Post-Brexit, UK’s European friends in European Union were more supporting of India than UK. Sensing its defeat was imminent, the UK at the last moment withdrew its candidate Greenwood from the contest paving the ground for the victory of India’s Bhandari re-election to ICJ. 

It was a very sad moment for the UK, as it is for the first time that a candidate from a permanent founding member of the UN has not found a seat in the ICJ and the scale of the victory shows that India had support cutting across geographical regions. Further it shows the will of the General Assembly prevailed over that of the Security Council. It augurs well with India’s campaign for reforms in the UN, including a permanent seat for itself in the powerful Security Council.

British Permanent Representative to the U.N. Matthew Rycroft’s comments after withdrawing its candidate from contest show the diplomacy and maturity of UK as a nation. Rycroft said: ‘We are naturally disappointed, but it was a competitive field with six strong candidates. If the UK could not win in this run-off, then we are pleased that a close friend like India that has done so instead. We will continue to cooperate closely with India, here in the United Nations and globally.’ 

Credits should go to our foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, ministers of State V.K.Singh, Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar, India’s Permanent Representative to UN Syed Akbaruddin and the Minister of State for External Affairs M.J.Akbar – not to speak about the role played by our beloved PM Modi

Sushma Swaraj’s tweet sums up the mood of the nation as a whole: ‘Vande Mataram – India wins election to the International Court of Justice – Jai Hind.’

This historic diplomatic victory to secure the prized ICJ seat by India has three firsts.

This is the first time in over seven decades of the UN that the UK will not be represented in the ICJ. This is the first time that one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council lost out to an ordinary member in a race. This is also the first time that one sitting member of the ICJ lost out to another sitting member. These three Firsts and that too in the International Forum – are not easy to achieve and yes, Modi’s Team did it.

Modi tweeted that the success story is the team work of External Affairs Minister along with her dedicated ministerial staff and diplomatic missions. 

It is India’s Historic Proud Moment and we hope that the days are not far off for India to succeed to get a seat in UN Security Council.