A Nigerian judge, Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, has been elected the President of the International Criminal Court, The Hague, Netherlands. According to inf
A Nigerian judge, Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, has been elected the President of the International Criminal Court, The Hague, Netherlands. According to information on the ICC’s website, Eboe-Osuji was elected as President by his fellow judges on the ICC bench at a plenary session on Sunday, March 11, 2018. He would head the court for a three-year term, ending in 2021.
Fifty-five-year-old Eboe-Osuji, who joined the ICC on December 16, 2011, will be working in his position as the ICC President, alongside Judge Robert Fremr, from Czech Republic; and Judge Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, from France, as the First and Second Vice-Presidents of ICC, respectively. Eboe-Osuji, was quoted as saying that he was “deeply honoured to have been elected by my peers as President of the International Criminal Court.”
He said, “As I take up my duties, I feel encouraged that I am able to rely on the wide experience of the two Vice-Presidents, Judge Robert Fremr and Judge Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, both of whom I have closely worked with previously. I look forward to working together with them as well as with all the judges, all the officials and the staff of the court in a spirit of collegiality.
“I also look forward to collaborating with the Assembly of States Parties, civil society and the international community at large, acting together to strengthen and reinforce the Rome Statute system, the 20th anniversary of the adoption of which we celebrate this year.”
Eboe-Osuji, who comes from Anara, Imo State, according to Wikipedia, obtained his first degree in Law at the University of Calabar, Cross River State, was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1986 and practised briefly in the country before moving to Canada, where he obtained a master’s degree in Law from McGill in 1991. He worked as a barrister in Canada, having been called to the Bar in Ontario and in British Columbia in 1993. From 1997 to 2005, Eboe-Osuji worked at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda as prosecution counsel and senior legal officer to the judges of the tribunal.
From 2005 to 2007, he worked in Canada as a barrister and law lecturer. Working for the Special Court for Sierra Leone as senior prosecution appeals counsel in 2007/08 and returning to the ICTR from 2008 to 2010 as Head of Chambers, he became the Legal Advisor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay in 2010, and held a cross-appointment as the principal prosecution appeals counsel at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, in the case of Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia. He was also said to have served as a Legal Advisor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. He has authored two books and numerous law journal articles in international law.
