US: The election of 18 judges to the International Criminal Court begins today at the United Nations after an intensive lobbying campaign by UN member countries who have put forward a total of 43 candidates.
The election, which could take several days to complete, represents an important milestone in the creation of the court, which one senior diplomat yesterday described as the most important UN initiative since 1945.
The Government has nominated Judge Maureen Harding Clark as the Irish candidate. She is currently an ad litem judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague.
Judge Harding Clarke has experience in criminal and international humanitarian law, and particular expertise in the area of sexual and other violent offences against women and children.
A senior counsel since 1991, she has the backing of Amnesty International and the non-governmental organisations (NGO) community, factors which could count in her favour in the voting.
The United States has strongly opposed the creation of the court, which will sit in The Hague, on the grounds that its service personnel should only be subject to US jurisdiction while serving abroad.
The US was one of the 138 countries that signed the Rome statute establishing the International Criminal Court, but last May it withdrew its signature and launched an international diplomatic campaign for exemption of its citizens from the court's jurisdiction.
The election will be held in secret under a complex process that has been designed to ensure that the court has a good geographical and gender mix of judges.
Just over 80 states - those that have signed and ratified the 1998 Rome statute - are entitled to cast ballots.
The court has long been the goal of human rights campaigners across the world.
It will try special cases of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.
It was approved by the Security Council last year, despite the opposition of the US.
Human Rights Watch, the New York-based lobby group, has called on UN countries taking part in the election to set aside the practice of vote trading, in which regional groups agree to support each other's candidates with little regard to the individual's qualifications.
The British nominee is Judge Adrian Fulford, the first openly gay judge to be appointed to the High Court in Britain.