A Brazilian jurist will be the new judge in The Hague: he won the office from an Argentine candidate, who was the one with the most nominations

The International Court of Justice has a new judge. On Friday, the United Nations authorities chose Brazilian Leonardo Nemer Caldeira to occupy the post in The Hague, disputed against another Brazilian jurist and an Argentine candidate.

This is Marcelo Kohen, who was one of the candidates for the position of the main judicial body in the world and who lost in the fight for the post despite having received 17 nominations from other countries.

Had he won, he would have become the first Argentine jurist in The Hague after 30 years of absence of national representation in that court.

Kohen – a lawyer from Rosario who has lived in Switzerland for more than three decades – works as a professor of international law at the University Institute of Higher International Studies in Geneva and was promoted by the Argentine Foreign Ministry for this position.

Among his successes as a professional, he was the one who represented Argentina in disputes such as the case of the paper mills on the Uruguay River or the embargo of the Fragata Libertad.

But despite having the most candidates to become one of the 15 judges of the international court, the man who was also secretary general of the Institute of International Law, lost the elections to Caldeira.

He, unlike him, only had the nomination of 6 countries: Brazil, Malta, Peru, Portugal, Singapore and Turkey.

However, the Brazilian managed to win the contest for the position after obtaining the majority of votes both in the elections held this morning by the UN General Assembly and in those of the UN Security Council.

In this sense, Caldeira will be judge only until February 2027, from when he will take office to replace a magistrate, also Brazilian, who died in May of this year.

How the International Court of Justice was established

Following these elections, the International Court of Justice currently has judges from 15 countries.

They come from the United States, Russia, Slovakia, France, Morocco, Somalia, China, Uganda, India, Jamaica, Lebanon, Japan, Germany, Australia and Brazil.

DB