By: James G. Apple, Editor-in-Chief, International
Judicial Monitor
On March 11, 2018 the judges of the International Criminal
Court (ICC) selected as their president for the next three years Judge Chile
Eboe-Osuji of Nigeria. Judge Eboe-Osuji was elected to the ICC in 2013 by the
Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute, which acts as the Charter for
the Court. He was the first Nigerian to be elected to the Court. He succeeds Judge
Silvia Fernandez de Gurmendi of Argentina, who was elected president in 2015.
Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji has long experience in international
criminal law. During the years 1997 – 2005 he served as prosecution counsel and
senior legal officer at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He held
a similar position at the Special Court for Sierra Leone, focusing on appeals,
from 2007-2008. He returned to the Rwanda Tribunal for two years as Head of
Chambers. He also became the Legal Advisor to United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights. He also held the position of principal prosecution appeals
counsel for the Sierra Leone tribunal. As such he was involved in the trial of
Charles Taylor, former President of Liberia, who was convicted of crimes
against humanity.
While sitting on the ICC as a judge in 2014, Judge
Eboe-Osuji condemned the actions of the Kenya government in the trial of William Ruto
of Kenya, accused of crimes against humanity, for scaring off witnesses,
interfering with prosecution testimony and trying to scare judges.
Judge Eboe-Osuji was born in Imo State of Nigeria in
September, 1962. He received his law degree from the University of Calabar in
Nigeria. He also obtained a Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree from McGill University in
Montreal, Canada in1991. He was admitted to the bar of Canada in 1993, and
taught law in Canada and acted as a barrister during the years 2005-2007.