November 21,2017:

This will be the first time in 71-year-old history of the ICJ that there will be no British judge in what is described as ‘World Court’.

Justice Dalveer Bhandari has got elected to International Court of Justice (ICJ) panel of the judges in a dramatic fashion after UK withdrew its candidate bowing before overwhelming support in UN General Assembly (GA) for Justice Dalveer.

An top Indian diplomat described the mood of the Indian camp by quoting lines of British poet Tennyson’s, “the old order changeth, yielding place to new” after the development which is being seen as biggest diplomatic victory for India in recent years.

According to the Newspaper, The Guardian, Greenwood’s defeat is a humiliating blow to the British international prestige and an acceptance of its diminished status in the international affairs.

An extremely aggressive,campaign which was led by India’s Permanent Representative to UN, Syed Akbaruddin ensured that there were few takers for an arcane UK proposal that a joint conference be formed to break deadlock between GA and Security Council.

UK needed support from 8 members of Security Council to stall voting and instead go for the joint conference.

However, several other Council members, who would have voted for the Britain’s candidate Christopher Greenwood, were opposed to proposal as they agreed with India’s position that this was an “undemocratic” move which would only further complicate the process.

Also, for the joint conference to be formed, all the 15 council members would have had to publicly endorse UK’s proposal, something which countries like US and France, who regularly profess their friendship and strategic partnership with India, would have been averse to.

In the last round of the GA voting, Justice Dalveer Bhandari had 121 votes and while Greenwood had only 68.

Source - ptinews.com