United Nations Dispute Tribunal Position – Sri Lankan in the Fray

Sri Lanka will support the candidature of Justice Deepthi Amaratunga for the position of judge of the United Nations Dispute Tribunal (UNDT), when the UN General Assembly votes on the matter next week.
Voting for the position will take place at the sessions of the General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, 15 November. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is expected to garner diplomatic support for the appointment.    

The Internal Justice Council of the UN has recommended Justice Amaratunga to the UN General Assembly for a full time position as a judge of the UNDT.  
This is the first occasion that the UN Internal Justice Council has recommended a Sri Lankan to the UN General Assembly to be considered for the position of judge. 
The United Nations General Assembly operates the UNDT and its Appellate Tribunal for the purpose of administering justice within the United Nations.

The recommendation of the Sri Lankan to the UN General Assembly was made after four candidates were selected from several hundred applicants from UN member states. Justice Amaratunga’s recommendation is along with three other candidates from the USA, India and Brazil.
The final selection to the position will be made through a vote at the 2022 session of the General Assembly, which was initially scheduled for December 2022, and later brought forward to this month. 

Justice Amaratunga is currently a judge of the High Court of Fiji. At times, he has been invited to sit as a judge of the Fiji Court of Appeal. He has 24 years of experience in the judiciary of Sri Lanka and Fiji. He functioned as the assistant secretary of the Judicial Service Commission of Sri Lanka in the years 2002 – 2003. He joined the judiciary of Fiji in 2010.
Justice Amaratunga passed out as an Attorney at Law in 1993. He holds an LLM in International Economic Law from the University of Warwick (UK), an MA in International Relations, an MBA and a BSc degree from the University of Colombo. He also has a postgraduate diploma in American Studies from the University of Colombo.