United Nations secretary-general, Ban Ki-Moon, on Tuesday announced the appointment of Olufemi Elias from Nigeria as registrar of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.
According to a statement issued by Oluseyi Soremekun, spokesperson for the UN in Nigeria, the appointment takes effect from January 11, 2017.
Elias will succeed John Hocking from Australia, “to whom the Secretary-General is grateful for his service, including his instrumental role in setting up the mechanism and overseeing the construction of its new premises in Arusha, Tanzania.”
Elias has been serving as executive secretary of the World Bank Administrative Tribunal since July 2016, a position he also held from 2008 to 2013.
He was the legal adviser and a director at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) from 2013 to 2016 and senior legal officer at the OPCW from 2005 to 2008. Elias also worked in legal positions at the United Nations Compensation Commission between 1998 and 2005.
He is an associate member of the Institut de Droit International, as well as member of the Nigerian Bar and holds a Ph.D. from the University of London, a master of law from the University of Cambridge and a master of arts and a bachelor of arts in jurisprudence from the University of Oxford.
The International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals is an international court established by the United Nations Security Council in 2010 to perform the remaining functions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) following the completion of Tribunals’ respective mandates.
In the early 1990s, the United Nations Security Council established two criminal courts whose purpose was to investigate and prosecute individuals responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
The first of these courts was the ICTY, which was established in 1993 to investigate crimes committed during the Yugoslav wars.
The second court was ICTR, which was established the following year to address crimes committed during the Rwandan genocide.
Both the ICTY and the ICTR were meant to be temporary institutions that would conclude after their mandate to investigate crimes and prosecute individuals was completed. Although the two tribunals have completed substantially all of their mandates, there are residual functions that will not be accomplished for many more years.
For example, future trials may be held once remaining ICTR fugitives are captured, convicted persons may still petition for early release, protective orders for witnesses may need to be modified, and the archives that contain confidential documents need to be safeguarded.
In order to oversee the residual functions of the ICTY and ICTR in an efficient manner, the Security Council passed Resolution 1966 on 22 December 2010, which created the mechanism.
