ICTR gets new leadership

Judge Vagn Joensen has been elected President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) taking over from the Pakistani-born Khalida Rachid Khan who will be redeployed to the Appeals Chamber in The Hague next month. Joensen, Danish, was replaced as vice president by Florence Rita Arrey from Cameroon and will lead the Tanzania-based tribunal as it gears up towards folding its activities in 2014.This comes after Judge Khan announced on Monday that the new president would assume his duties on March 2, 2012, while the new vice-president was supposed to have commenced duties yesterday.Judge Joensen joined the tribunal in May 2007 as an ad litem Judge and member of Trial Chamber III. Before joining the Tribunal, he was a judge at the Danish High Court, Eastern Division, in Copenhagen since 1994 and served as an international judge for the UNMIK in Kosovo from 2001 to 2002. Born in 1950, Judge Joensen obtained a Master of Law in 1973 at the University of Aarhus, and has studied at the City of London College and Harvard Law School. He has been the Chairperson of the Tribunal’s Rules Committee since its inception in 2007, and was Vice-President of the tribunal from August 2011 to February 2012. Meanwhile, Judge Arrey joined the Tribunal in October 2003 as an ad litem Judge and member of Trial Chamber III. Prior to her appointment to the tribunal, she served as Judge in the Supreme Court of Cameroon. She is also credited as the first Cameroonian woman to be the Chief Justice of the Court of Appeal, a post she held for ten years. Born in 1948, Judge Arrey holds a certificate in Legal Treaty Drafting and International Law from the University of London, Advanced Institute of Legal Studies as well as a Diploma in Magistracy from ENAM, Yaoundé and LLB from the University of Lagos.She is the president of the Cameroonian Chapter of the International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ) and since 2008, is an elected member of the International Board of Directors of the IAWJ. In celebration of International Women’s Day in Cameroon, on 8 May 2011 Judge Arrey was named amongst 50 women who had made an impact in Cameroon and was hailed “as a no nonsense Judge” by her Government. In July 2011, the UN Security Council, acting on the request of the president of the ICTR, decided that notwithstanding the relevant articles of the Court’s Statute, ad litem judges were now eligible to stand for, and vote in elections for the Tribunal’s presidency and vice presidency. Under the previous rules, the critical positions of the President and Vice President were in danger of lacking eligible candidates, since all permanent judges are expected to depart from the Trial Chambers in the coming months.

National

ICTR gets new leadership