MANILA – The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has instructed the Philippine Mission to the United Nations (UN) to vote for China’s candidate to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
“You are instructed to cast the Philippine vote for the Chinese candidate to the International Court of Justice. That is your only clear instruction,” DFA Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. tweeted Sunday.
On Nov. 11, elections will be held at the UN headquarters in New York. The winners would fill up the five seats to be available on Feb. 5, 2021.
Incumbents seeking reelection are Peter Tomka from Slovakia, Yuji Iwasawa from Japan, and Julia Sebutinde from Uganda.
Others who are vying for ICJ seats are Olufemi Elias from Nigeria, Georg Nolte from Germany, Maja Seršićf from Croatia and Emmanuel Ugirashebuja from Rwanda.
ICJ is composed of 15 judges elected to nine-year terms of office by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council.
These organs, the UN said, vote simultaneously but separately.
According to the UN, a candidate must receive an absolute majority of the votes in both bodies.
There had been territorial disputes over the South China Sea between Manila and Beijing for years now.
Following a case filed by the Philippines, the UN-linked Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, Netherlands, ruled that Manila’s economic and sovereign rights under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea has been violated by Beijing’s claim over the South China Sea.