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U.S. Candidate Ruth Wedgwood Elected to Human Rights
Committee
United Nations, September 9 -- American law professor Ruth
Wedgwood was elected today to the
Human
Rights Committee, the implementation body for the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This
covenant is considered by many scholars and international
lawyers to be one of the most important international human
rights treaties now in existence. Wedgwood joins candidates
from
India,
Japan, Switzerland, France, Tunisia, Argentina, Poland and
Panama who were
elected this morning to serve on the UNHRC.
The election took place in New York in an ad hoc meeting of
States Parties to the Covenant.
The UNHRC is comprised of 18 persons serving in their
private capacities, nine of whom are elected every two years
to serve four-year terms. The Committee’s principle
functions are to review the required
periodic reports that
States Parties must file with the Committee on the
implementation of each provision of the Covenant, and to
adjudicate compliance complaints between or among States
Parties. The Committee meets three times annually in
three-week sessions, alternating between New York and
Geneva. The newly elected members will begin their new
terms on January 1, 2003
Wedgwood, 52, is a currently a visiting professor of
International Law and Diplomacy and Director of the Program
on International Law and Organizations at the Nitze School
of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins
University in Washington, DC. She is also a distinguished
professor of International Law at
Yale
University, where she teaches international human rights
law.
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