The Secretary-General of the United Nations Mr. Ban Ki-moon has appointed Mr. John Hocking from Australia as the Registrar of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals. Mr. Hocking has been serving as Registrar of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia since May 2009, and will continue in that position while working as the Registrar of the Residual Mechanism.

The Residual Mechanism was established by Security Council resolution 1966 (2010) to carry out a number of essential functions of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda after their closure. It will have two branches, in Arusha and in The Hague, which will start functioning on 1 July 2012 and 1 July 2013, respectively. As its first Registrar, Mr. Hocking will be responsible for the effective commencement of the Residual Mechanism’s functions.

Mr. Hocking is a long-standing staff member of the ICTY having joined the institution in 1997. He held the position of Deputy Registrar from December 2004 until January 2009 when he became Acting Registrar. Prior to the appointments, he served as the Senior Legal Officer for the Appeals Chamber of both the ICTY and the ICTR. He initially worked as the legal officer on the ICTY’s first multi-accused proceedings, the Čelebići trial.

Mr. Hocking has over 25 years experience as a lawyer working in both the domestic and international arena. His prior responsibilities include five years as legal and policy adviser to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris; legal and policy adviser to the Australian Government’s national multicultural television and radio broadcaster, the Special Broadcasting Service; legal and policy adviser to human rights barristers and the British Film Institute in London; legal associate to Justice Michael Kirby, former President of the Court of Appeal and Judge of the High Court of Australia; and, legal and policy adviser to the Australian Film Commission.

Mr. Hocking has been admitted as a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn, London, and a barrister/solicitor with the Supreme Courts of Victoria and New South Wales in Australia. He holds a Master of Law with merit from the University of London (London School of Economics and Political Science), a Bachelor of Law from the University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Science (physiology and biochemistry) from Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He has written a number of publications, particularly on issues relating to international humanitarian and criminal law.