Silvia Fernández de Gurmendi, an Argentine 61 year-old judge, has been elected President of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for a three-year term with immediate effect.
«It is a great honor to have been elected President of the International Criminal Court. I will do my utmost to live up to the trust that my fellow judges have placed in me. I look forward to working together with the two Vice-Presidents, Judge Joyce Aluoch and Judge Kuniko Ozaki, and indeed all the judges and other organs of the Court, as well the Assembly of States Parties, civil society and the international community at large, in fulfilling the ICC’s important mandate for the sake of justice, peace and the rule of law», President Fernández de Gurmendi stated following the election.
Fernández de Gurmendi worked as Director of Human Rights at the Minister of Cult and Foreign Relations, as well as legal councillor in the Argentine Mission at the United Nations, between 1994 and 2000.
She has also been Argentine representative at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) and the Inter-American Court of Justice (IACJ), where she contributed to the creation of the international court she will now preside.
The ICC is an international court created in 1998 that can judge crimes of transcendence to the international community, such as genocides, crimes against humanity, wars and aggressions.
Source: Buenos Aires Herald