General Assembly elects Judge Yusuf Aksar of Turkey to serve as Mechanism Judge

On Friday, 21 December 2018, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) elected Judge Yusuf Aksar of Turkey to the judicial roster of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (Mechanism).

Judge Aksar has been a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration since 2016 and an ad hoc Judge of the European Court of Human Rights since 2015. He is also currently serving as a Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Law of the Maltepe University in Istanbul, Turkey.

Judge Aksar was elected following the vacancies on the Mechanism’s judicial roster created by the departure of Judge Bakone Justice Moloto of South Africa and the non-renewal of the term of Judge Aydin Sefa Akay of Turkey. Judge Aksar was elected by the UNGA from the list of candidates submitted by the United Nations Security Council and following nominations from Member States of the United Nations.

With respect to the election of the second Judge to the Mechanism roster, since no candidate obtained an absolute majority after six rounds of balloting, the meeting was suspended and is expected to be resumed at a later date for another round of voting.

In accordance with its Statute, the Mechanism has a roster of 25 independent Judges who serve both branches of the Mechanism.