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Marking a significant moment for the country, a young Indian lawyer has won a seat in the hotly-contested United Nations (UN) General Assembly elections for membership its top body of legal experts, garnering the highest number of votes in the Asia-Pacific group.
The 33-year-old Aniruddha Rajput is among the 34 other individuals, who have been elected by the General Assembly as members of the International Law Commission, the UN organ tasked with the progressive development of international law and its codification.
The newly elected members will serve a five-year-term office with the Geneva-based body beginning operations from January in 2017.
The members have been elected from five geographical groupings compirising African, Asia-Pacific, Eastern European, Latin American and Caribbean, and Western European states.
Rajput got 160 votes, topping the voting charts of the Asia-Pacific group. Voting was held by way of a secret ballot on Thursday.
Among the youngest to be elected to the nearly 70-year-old body, Rajput is India's first time candidate to the Commission and its permanent representative to the UN Ambassador, Syed Akbaruddin told PTI.
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A practicising lawyer at the country's apex judicial authority-the Supreme Court, Rajput is also the first Indian nominee to be chosen from outside a close circle of lawyers of the Ministry of External Affairs.
An alumnus of the London School of Economics and Political Science, Rajput was a member of an expert group appointed by the Law Commission of India to study and comment upon the Model Bilateral Investment Treaty of 2015 in India, according to his profile submitted to the UN.
He has written several books, chapters, articles, conference papers on diverse legal subjects and his area of expertise lies in the field of internaltional law, including sources of international law, international arbitration and trade law, among others.
In response to a congratulatory tweet by Singapore's Ambassador to the United Nations' Burhan Gafoor on Rajput's election, Akbaruddin replied, "We are deeply appreciative of the support extended by many friends from India to ensure Dr Rajput's election by a huge margin."
Japan's Shinya Murase got the second highest number of votes in the Asia-Pacific group at 148, followed by Mahmoud Daifallah Hmoud of Jordan and Huikang Huang of China with 146 votes each. Korea's Ki Gab Park won 136 votes, while Ali bin Fetais Al-Marri of Qatar and Hong Thao Nguyen of Viet Nam bagged 128 and 120 votes respectively.
