The 57th United Nations General Assembly elected Shi Jiuyong and other four people as judges to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on October 21.

Shi Jiuyong, born in southeast China's Zhejiang Province in 1926, was first elected as an ICJ judge in November 1993, making this his second appointment. Having graduated with a B.A. in Government and Public Law from Shanghai-based St. John's University in 1948 and a M.A. in International Law from Columbia University in the United States in 1951, Shi has been conducting research and teaching international law at Chinese universities in Beijing since 1956. He also serves as a legal advisor to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Last February, he was elected vice-president of the ICJ.

The other elected candidates come from Japan, Germany, Sierra Leone and the Slovak Republic. They will take office on February 6, 2003.

The ICJ is the principal judicial body of the United Nations. It sits in The Hague, Netherlands. The Court is composed of 15 judges independently elected to nine-year terms of office by the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council with no country allowed to have more than one judge on the bench. Elections are held every three years for one-third of the seats, and retiring judges may be re-elected.

(china.org.cn by Feng Yikun, October 23, 2002)