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The International Court of Justice has fifteen judges from different countries elected by the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council. They serve staggered nine year terms with elections of five judges every three years. The court sits at the Hague in the Netherlands.
Bosnia's application went before a full plenary tribunal including judges from six European countries--France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Russia, and the United Kingdom (the only woman judge); three jurists from the Americas--the United States, Venezuela, and Guyana; three African members from Algeria, Sierra Leone, and Madagascar; and three from Asia--China, Japan and Sri Lanka.
Since none of the 15 are from Bosnia or Yugoslavia, each could appoint an additional ad hoc judge. Bosnia chose a British barrister, Eli Lauterpacht, CBE, QC, Director of the Research Centre for International Law at Cambridge University. Yugoslavia named Judge ad hoc Milenko Kreca. In 1994 the Algerian judge Mohammed Bedjaoui was elected ICJ President, and the U.S. judge Stephen M. Schwebel as Vice-president.
Bosnian Ambassador to the United Nations Muhamed Sacirbey heads a legal team that has enlisted talent from the United Kingdom and the U.S. Initially University of Illinois law professor Francis Boyle argued the Bosnia case. In 1994 the government retained a new team led by Van den Biesen, NYU Law Professor Thomas Franck, and Khawar Qureshi of the United Kingdom.
Serbian representative Rodoljub Etinski also enlisted well known international advocates to assist its government lawyers-- Israel's Shabtai Rosenne to oppose the request for provisional measures, and then Ian Brownlie of the United Kingdom.
