The U.S. Department of State has announced the National Group to the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s intention to nominate Sarah H. Cleveland of Columbia Law School to a seat on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2023.
The ICJ functions as the judicial body of the United Nations, settling legal disputes and the promotion of the rule of law among UN member states. If confirmed, Cleveland will be the second woman to represent the United States on the court.
From the press release:
A dedicated scholar of international law, Professor Cleveland possesses the knowledge, experience, integrity, commitment to the rule of law, and vision to help guide the Court in its important work in the years ahead.?She is an outstanding choice for this key position. We ask other UN Member States to vote for Professor Cleveland in 2023.
Professor Cleveland has a long and distinguished career in the service of international law, including as a professor of international law, as the Counselor on International Law?in the Department of State’s Office of the Legal Adviser (2009-2011), and as Vice Chair and member of the UN Human Rights Committee (2015-2018). She currently holds the Louis Henkin Chair in Human and Constitutional Rights at Columbia University Law School in New York, where she has been a member of the faculty since 2007. Professor Cleveland also?served as the U.S. observer member and member on the European Commission for Democracy Through Law (Venice Commission) of the Council of Europe (2010-2019), and she is presently a member of the Ad Hoc Conciliation Commission for?Qatar v. United Arab Emirates?in the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.?She has been a visiting professor of international law at the University Panthéon-Assas (Paris II) and Sciences-Po University in Paris, France, as well as at universities in Italy, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. She has published widely on international law subjects and has been involved in international law litigation in the United States and before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. She continues to serve as a member of my Advisory Committee on International Law, as a Council Member of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, and as a Commissioner for the International Commission of Jurists.
Cleveland served as a Coordinating Reporter for Restatement of the Law Fourth, The Foreign Relations Law of the United States (Treaties, Jurisdiction, and Sovereign Immunity), as well as a Reporter on the Treaties Section of the Restatement.