UNITED NATIONS: Aniruddha Rajput, a 33 year old Supreme Court lawyer and PhD student, has been elected to the International Law Commission by the United Nations General Assembly, with a record number of votes.
Topping the Asia-Pacific group in the election, Rajput scored 160 votes in the secret ballot. Japan's Shinya Murase got the second highest with 148, followed by Jordan's Mahmoud Daifallah Hmoud, and China's Huikang Huang with 146 votes each, Korea's Ki Gab Park with 136 votes, Ali bin Fetais Al-Marri of Qatar with 128 votes, and Hong Thao Nguyen of Vietnam with 120 votes. "This is a real honour for me and I want to thank the Ministry of External Affairs, especially India's permanent representative to UN Syed Akbaruddin, for their support," Rajput said. This is the first time the MEA nominated an outsider, instead of someone from its pool of lawyers for the membership.
Rajput is an alumnus of the London School of Economics and Political Science. He was the member of an expert group appointed by the Law Commission of India to study and comment upon the Model Bilateral Investment Treaty 2015 of India, as per the profile submitted to the UN. Newly elected members will serve five-year terms of office with the Geneva-based body beginning January 2017. "International relations is important but member-states of the UN have to vote for the candidate who has recognised competence in international law and the number speaks for itself," Rajput said.
