Composition
As stipulated by Chapter VIII of the Convention, the Court consists of seven judges of the highest moral authority from the Organization's member states. These judges are elected to six-year terms by the OAS General Assembly; each judge may be reelected for an additional six-year term.
Unlike the commissioners of the Inter-American Commission, judges are not required to recuse themselves from hearing cases involving their home countries; however no member state may have more than one representative judge serving on the Court at any time. In the event a member state is party to a case as a defendant does not have a representative judge sitting on the Court, the member state is entitled to appoint a judge to the court ad hoc for the case.
After the Convention came into force on 18 July 1978, the first election of judges took place on 22 May 1979. The new Court first convened on 29 June 1979 at the Organization of American States Headquarters in Washington, D.C., United States.
Read more about this topic: Inter-American Court Of Human Rights
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“Pushkin’s composition is first of all and above all a phenomenon of style, and it is from this flowered rim that I have surveyed its seep of Arcadian country, the serpentine gleam of its imported brooks, the miniature blizzards imprisoned in round crystal, and the many-hued levels of literary parody blending in the melting distance.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“There was not a grain of poetry in the whole composition of Lord Fawn, and poetry was what her very soul craved;Mpoetry, together with houses, champagne, jewels, and admiration.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)