Judge Dire Tladi is the first South African to be appointed to the International Court of Justice.

• Dire Tladi is the first South Africa to be elected as International Court of Justice judge.
• President Cyril Ramaphosa congratulated him in a statement on Friday.
• Tladi was nominated by Dirco to serve on the ICJ and this was endorsed by the Cabinet in May.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has congratulated the first South African to be elected by the United Nations as a judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

On Thursday evening, the UN Presidency of the General Assembly and Security Council announced that Professor Dire Tladi had been chosen for a nine-year term on the ICJ.

Following the announcement, Tladi took to his X page and said:

Tladi was elected alongside Bogdan-Lucian Aurescu from Romania, Hilarly Charlesworth from Australia, Sarah Hull Cleveland from the US, and Juan Manuel Gómez Robledo Verduzco from Mexico.

In a statement on Friday, Ramaphosa congratulated Tladi. In May, the Cabinet had endorsed his nomination by the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) to serve on the ICJ.

“Prof Tladi’s election as a judge of the International Court of Justice is an outstanding personal achievement in which the nation shares with great pride. We appreciate the confidence expressed by the United Nations in Prof Tladi’s capabilities,” the president said.

“He becomes the newest member of a fraternity of South Africans globally who are in positions of service to the international community and making important contributions to the better world we seek to build. We wish Prof Tladi well as he prepares to contribute to the court and its jurisprudence from the Palace of Peace in The Hague, Netherlands.”

Tladi is a professor of International Law at the University of Pretoria, and on Friday, the institution and its law faculty wished him well. The university said his election to the ICJ was “significant and commendable.”

Dean of Law Elsabe Schoeman said: “The faculty is proud of him and knows he will represent us well.”

In a September interview with Newzroom Afrika about his nomination, Tladi said he was surprised to receive a call from Dirco informing him about the process of nominating someone to serve on the ICJ, and whether he would be interested.

“And of course, I said, ‘Yes, I would be interested,'” he said.

In the interview, he shared that the Cabinet had considered two other people, but a decision was made to settle with him.

“It was a surprise, in part, because it is something I had always hoped for, but I had always thought I would do it later. So, I had always hoped that sort of, in the next three or four years, I might, myself, approach the government and say, ‘Would you mind nominating me?’ So, it was a surprise to be asked out of the blue, and I was ecstatic.”

Asked what he would focus on if elected, Tladi responded that he was “driven by the concept of solidarity in international law” – and that the international legal system should be focus its concern on those most marginalised.

READ | Dire Tladi and Stacey Abrams have both written cracking thrillers

He said:

“That is the contribution I hope to make to the court, amongst others. I think what is most important is for the individuals of the court to be objective, but always with this idea that ‘what is it that our international law can create.'”

Among many of his achievements, Tladi has served as a legal advisor to the South African diplomatic mission in New York and as a special advisor to the ministers of international relations.