General Assembly Elects Five Judges to United Nations Dispute, Appeals Tribunals, Also Extends Date of Seventy-Third Session Recess until 21 December

The General Assembly today elected by secret ballot Joëlle Adda (France) and Francesco Buffa (Italy) as judges on the United Nations Dispute Tribunal and Jean-François Neven (Belgium), Graeme Colgan (New Zealand) and Kanwaldeep Sandhu (Canada) as judges on the Appeals Tribunal.

The five judges will serve on the two entities that comprise a system of the administration of justice at the United Nations addressing employment-related disputes.  Through resolution 62/228, adopted in 2007, the Assembly decided that it will appoint the judges of the tribunals on the recommendation of the Internal Justice Council.

Ms. Adda and Mr. Buffa will replace Memooda Ebrahim-Carstens (Botswana) and Goolam Hoosen Kader-Meeran (United Kingdom), whose terms of office on the Dispute Tribunal expire on 30 June 2019.  Ms. Adda will fill a full-time post while Mr. Buffa will fill a half-time post.  Both judges will serve seven-year terms starting 1 July 2019.

For their part, Mr. Neven, Mr. Colgan and Mr. Sandhu will fill vacancies on the Appeals Tribunal that will arise when the terms of office of Rosalyn Chapman (United States), Richard Lussick (Samoa) and Deborah Thomas-Felix (Trinidad and Tobago) expire on 30 June 2019.  The newly-elected judges will serve seven-year terms beginning 1 July 2019.

To be eligible for an appointment as a judge to the Dispute Tribunal, candidates must be of high moral character and impartial; possess at least 10 years of judicial experience in the field of administrative law or the equivalent within one or more national jurisdictions; and be fluent, both orally and in writing, in English or French.

Appointments to the Appeals Tribunal require candidates to be of high moral character and impartial; possess at least 15 years of judicial experience in the field of administrative law, employment law or the equivalent within one or more national or international jurisdictions; and be fluent, both orally and in writing, in at least one of the working languages of the Tribunal.

Similar to previous rounds of judicial appointments, the Council approached the relevant national bar or judicial associations for confirmation of the integrity of each recommended candidate.

For such matters, the Assembly had before it the report of the Internal Justice Council “Appointment of judges of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal and of the United Nations Dispute Tribunal” (documents A/73/203 and A/73/203/Corr.1).  It also had before it a memorandum by the Secretary-General on the “Appointment of judges of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal and of the United Nations Dispute Tribunal” (documents A/73/422 and A/73/422/Corr.1).

In other business, the Assembly agreed to postpone the date of recess of its current session from 17 December to 21 December.  It also agreed to extend the work of its Second Committee (Economic and Financial) until 5 December.

It also decided to hold the award ceremony for the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights at its plenary meeting on 18 December, further deciding that United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet will address the meeting.

The Assembly will reconvene at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 29 November, to consider the question of Palestine and the situation in the Middle East.