China thanks PH for vote on Chinese ICJ candidate

“Thank you for your support of the Chinese candidate. It is highly appreciated,” the Embassy said in a tweet. “As always, China would like to continue to strengthen close cooperation and coordination with the Philippines in regional and international fora.” (Shutterstock photo)

MANILA – The Chinese Embassy in Manila on Friday thanked the Philippine government for supporting its candidate Judge Xue Hanqin in the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

“Thank you for your support of the Chinese candidate. It is highly appreciated,” the Embassy said in a tweet. “As always, China would like to continue to strengthen close cooperation and coordination with the Philippines in regional and international fora.”

The international court held its election last Nov. 11 to fill five ICJ seats that will become vacant next year.

Aside from Xue, the others who vied for the position were Peter Tomka (Slovakia), Yuji Iwasawa (Japan), Julia Sebutinde (Uganda), Olufemi Elias (Nigeria), Georg Nolte (Germany), Maja Seršić (Croatia), and Emmanuel Ugirashebuja (Rwanda).

Of the eight candidates, Manila voted for China’s Xue, Japan’s Iwasawa, and Germany’s Nolte, said Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin, Jr.

“We voted for China’s, Japan’s and Germany’s respective candidates for the International Court of Justice, and all three won—along with Uganda. Their qualifications are sterling, their probity beyond question; our national interest is in the intelligence & integrity of the world court,” he wrote in a tweet Thursday.

Xue, Iwasawa, Nolte, Sebutinde, and Slovakia’s Tomka’s nine-year term will begin in February 2021.

The ICJ, known as the World Court, is the UN’s principal judicial organ tasked with settling legal disputes submitted by states.

It is composed of 15 judges elected by the UN General Assembly and the Security Council. Five judges of the court are elected every three years.

Once seated, the UN said a member of the ICJ is “a delegate neither of the government of his own country nor of that of any other State”.