Split term between India, UK, suggests Thailand envoy
"We broke our deadlock with the New Zealand for World Trade Organisation’s director-general by splitting the 4-year term by 3 years each,” Chutintorn Gongsakdi, Thailand’s envoy to India, said on Monday.
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Foreign secretary S Jaishankar, speaking aid at an event at PHD Chamber of Commerce Monday, talked about “repositioning and rebalancing of the world”, as “recalibration of the western world”.
As the high-stakes elections for a judge at the International Court of Justice plays out in New York, Thailand’s ambassador to India Chutintorn Gongsakdi has suggested a unique way out — by splitting the term of the judge between India and the UK.
“If you really have to, split the term. Go for six years each (adding one year each for good measure). We broke our deadlock with the New Zealand for World Trade Organisation’s director-general by splitting the 4-year term by 3 years each,” Chutintorn Gongsakdi, Thailand’s envoy to India, said on Monday.
Foreign secretary S Jaishankar, speaking aid at an event at PHD Chamber of Commerce Monday, talked about “repositioning and rebalancing of the world”, as “recalibration of the western world”. These comments came as India’s Permanent Representative to the United Syed Akbaruddin is set to meet the President of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), Italy’s Sebastiano Cardo and the United Nations General Assembly president, Slovakia’s Miroslav Lajcák, on Monday night (IST), hours before the voting takes place in the wee hours of Tuesday.
At stake is the election of the judge at the ICJ, which is hearing the crucial Kulbhushan Jadhav case, and the Indian nominee, Dalveer Bhandari, a former judge from the Supreme Court of India, is standing for re-election. He is currently locked in a battle with UK’s candidate Christopher Greenwood, and there have been six rounds of voting. While Bhandari has got a simple majority at the UNGA, Greenwood has led the contest at the UNSC.
According to UN rules, the one who gets absolute majority in both the UNSC and UNGA is the winner. Since there has been a fractured verdict, India is hoping to get two-third majority at the UNGA and claim “moral victory”. The next round is scheduled to be held on Monday afternoon at 3 pm in New York, which will be past midnight in Delhi.
According to sources, the UK is pressing for the convening of a “joint conference” between the UNGA and UNSC under Article 12 (1) of the ICJ statute. A joint conference would be a meeting between six countries – three each from the UNGA and UNSC. 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. But, how these countries will be selected is not clear, since the ICJ rules are silent on the issue. This option has been last used in 1921.
That makes the meeting between Akbaruddin and the UNGA and the UNSC Presidents important, since they are likely to discuss these issues on Monday night. When contacted, a top Indian diplomat at the UN told The Indian Express that they are “looking forward to balloting at the UN”.
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