On Tuesday 24 April 2001, the General Assembly of the United Nations elected two new judges, Winston Churchill Matanzima Maqutu of Lesotho and Arlette Ramaroson of Madagascar, to serve at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) until 24 May 2003.

Reacting to the election of the two judges, the President of the ICTR, Judge Navanethem Pillay, thanked the Security Council and General Assembly for the speed with which they had moved to implement measures to reinforce the Tribunal’s Appeals Chamber.

The election follows a Security Council decision to increase the number of judges in the Appeals Chamber common to the ICTR and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), to enable them to expedite their work. In its resolution 1329(2000), the Council decided that two additional judges should be elected to the ICTR whereupon two of the eleven judges would be designated to serve in the Appeals.

Born in Lesotho on 11 December 1940 Judge Maqutu graduated in law from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1969 and, following a long career as an advocate, has been a judge of the High Court of Lesotho since 1993.

Judge Ramaroson has had a distinguished career in the criminal justice system of the Republic of Madagascar becoming President of the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court. She is presently on secondment to the Ministry of Justice. She was born in Madagascar on 14 August 1944 and graduated in law from University of Madagascar in 1973.

Judge Pillay observed that the process of determining which two ICTR judges would go to the Appeals Chamber will be treated as a matter of urgency and noted with pleasure that another woman has been added to the bench.

Full details of the careers of the two new judges may be obtained on request from the Press and Public Affairs Unit, e-mailictr-press@un.org.