Tanzanian professor voted into UN international law commission

 

TA T A N Z A N I A N Professor, Chris Maina Peter, was on Thursday voted member of the United Nations’ International Law Commission (ILC) by the UN General Assembly.

Prof Maina, who is currently a Professor of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM), was among 13 candidates from Africa who had vied for a seat in the UN’s legal body. 

 

The newly elected members will serve a five-year term of office with the Geneva-based body beginning January 2017. 

The members have been elected from five geographical groupings of Africa (eight members), Asia-Pacific (seven members), Eastern Europe (four members), Latin America and Caribbean (seven members) and Western European states with eight members.

Prof Maina was born on April 14, 1954 and holds a PhD in Law from the University of Konstanz in Germany. 

He once served as a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of the Racial Discrimination (CERD), United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Geneva, Switzerland. He has also published widely in the area of human rights, humanitarian law, public international law and good governance.

Other members from African countries included Ahmed Laraba (Algeria), TacoubaCissé (Ivory Coast), Dire D. Tladi (South Africa), Hussein A. Hassouna (Egypt), Amos Wako (Kenya), Charles C. Jalloh (Sierra Leone) and Hassan Ouazzani Chahdi (Morocco).

From Asia-Pacific the members are Ali bin Fetais Al-Marri (Qatar), Mahmoud DaifallahHmoud (Jordan), Huikang Huang (China), Shinya Murase (Japan), Hong Thao Nguyen (Vietnam), Ki Gab Park (Korea ) and Aniruddha Rajput (India).

From Latin American and Caribbean was Carlos Argüello Gómez (Nicaragua), Juan Manuel Gómez-Robledo (Mexico), Claudio Grossman Guiloff (Chile), Juan Jose RudaSantolaria, (Peru), Gilberto VergneSaboia (Brazil), Eduardo Valencia -Ospina (Columbia) and Marcelo Vázquez- Bermúdez (Ecuador).

 Members from Eastern Europe elected were Bogdan Aurescu (Romania), Kirumi Anatolyevitch Kolodkin, (Russian Confederation), Ernest Petric (Slovenia) and Pavel Šturma (Czech Republic).

In the case of Western Europe and other countries who voted were, Concepción Escobar Hernández (Spain), PatríciaGalvãoTeles (Portugal), MarjaLehto (Finland), Sean David Murphy (United States), Georg Nolte (Germany), Nilufer Oral (Turkey), AgostiReinisch (Austria) and Michael Wood (United Kingdom).

The ILC was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948 for the promotion of the progressive development of international law and its codification. It holds an annual session at the United Nations Office in Geneva.