[JURIST] Members of the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly elected five judges [UN press release] to the fifteen member International Court of Justice (ICJ) [official website] Monday. The ICJ is the UN's highest court and settles disputes between governments and issues advisory opinions on topics presented by UN bodies. American Thomas Buergenthal [official profile], a professor of international law and a former judge of the Inter-American human rights court was reelected to his second term. New judges include: Mohamed Bennouna [profile] from Morocco, Kenneth Keith [profile] from New Zealand, Bernardo Sepulveda Amor [profile] of Mexico, and Leonid Skotnikov of Russia. Each judge will serve a nine-year term and cannot hold another office during that time. No two judges can come from the same home country and efforts are taken to ensure that the primary world legal systems are represented. The ICJ Rules of Court [text] has more information on the election of judges. Reuters has more.