Abstract
Syed Akbaruddin is a retired Indian government servant who served as India’s permanent representative to the United Nations in New York from January 2016 to April 2020. He is a member of the 1985 batch of the Indian Foreign Service. From January 2012 to April 2015, he was the official spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, and from 2006 to 2011, he was the Indian representative at the International Atomic Energy Agency. Currently, he is the head of the Kautilya School of Public Policy. In this book, he tells the narrative of India’s historic diplomatic victory in the election to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2017, complete with twists and turns. The narrative is written in the first person, and it flows like a story, with stories chosen from his diary, which he kept during his time as India’s Permanent Representative (PR) to the United Nations (UN) from 2016 to 2020
Despite British privileges and levers, India bested the United Kingdom for a judgeship at the ICJ, as told in India vs UK, a compelling store of an otherwise dull UN election. It is packed with diplomatic vignettes providing glimpses into both New Delhi’s ‘full-court push’, including the entire diplomatic machinery, and New York’s subterranean diplomacy, as told by India’s former PR to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin. Only two Indian PRs, Chinmaya Gharekhan and Hardeep Puri, who led India’s terms as a UN Security Council (UNSC) elected member in 1991–1992 and 2011–2012, respectively, have written book-length memoirs about their experiences at the UN since then. Aside from that, there does not appear to be a significant Indian audience for New York dispatches. Ambassador Akbaruddin guided India to yet another UNSC term (2021–2022), but he stepped down before the term began. However, in India vs UK, he has chosen to narrate another victory.
In many respects, the election of India’s Justice Dalveer Bhandari over the United Kingdom’s Sir Christopher Greenwood for an ICJ judgeship in November 2017 was historic. It was the first time an Indian judge won a complete term without having previously been defeated in an election. Greenwood’s defeat meant that the ICJ would be without a judge from a permanent member of SC (P5) country for the first time since its formation. The British press pounced on the setback, which came a little over a year after the Brexit referendum, as another proof of London’s losing global clout. In 2019, the court issued an adverse ruling against the United Kingdom in a sovereignty dispute brought by Mauritius. For UN watchers, the incident was yet another example of the General Assembly’s dominance over the SC, which is unusual outside of elections. A judge, nominated by national councils (not countries), must gain majorities in both the Assembly and the Council in this procedurally convoluted vote. Bhandari and Greenwood were in a direct fight after four judges cleared the bar. Justice Bhandari was topping the polls in the General Assembly, but he didn’t get enough votes in the Council. Greenwood, on the other hand, excelled in the Council, owing to the P5’s unrelenting support for one of their own. Previously, when the two bodies chose different candidates, the General Assembly’s will usually prevailed; however, such draws only involved non-presidential candidates. The United Kingdom eventually withdrew its candidacy due to a lacklustre showing in the General Assembly—a reflection of international sentiment. In this way, India’s victory might be interpreted as the world community rallying behind a growing power against a long-serving permanent member.
This study is of relevance to scholars of Indian foreign policy and multilateral diplomacy on three points, aside from its documentary value. For starters, it’s a damning indictment of India’s foreign policy, which has global ambitions but is mired in regional quarrels. According to Ambassador Akbar, the ministry decided not to contest the ICJ election for more than a year after the Indian embassy in New York contacted New Delhi about its interest in the job. New Delhi only grasped the relevance of a seat on the court after India took Kulbhushan Jadhav’s case to the ICJ in May 2017. Jadhav, an Indian national, was charged with espionage and tried in a Pakistani military court without due process or consular access, culminating in the imposition of the death penalty. The India-versus-United-Kingdom episode would not have happened if Jadhav’s execution verdict had not been overturned. Another key point in the book is that office-bearers of the ruling Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) place a high value on multilateral elections as markers of India’s status, which aligns with their worldview of making India a world leader.
Second, the report alluded to the myriad procedures and intrigues of multilateral diplomacy, such as the considerations that go into bartering for support in New York’s bazaar or the fact that India’s foreign aid recipients were among the first to support the country’s cause. Third, and most importantly for political scientists, it provides a detailed understanding of the regional and group dynamics, as well as group cohesion, that are present in such elections. Regional competition would seem to take centre stage, but Akbaruddin and many of the other more experienced diplomats whose discussions he records tell us that birds from the same region fly together. In any event, UN election dynamics remain an under-researched and under-theorised field, and our research will undoubtedly contribute to that knowledge for future endeavours. The P5’s persistent effort to protect their privileges is the most important outcome detailed in this narrative. Even though India was a partner in the Quad strategic conversation, the US embassy went out of its way to send materials criticising Justice Bhandari to 40 other missions in New York (between the US, India, Australia and Japan). In 2020, at the height of Trump’s anti-China rhetoric, Chinese judge Xue Hanquin earned not just Washington’s vote but also its non-national nomination—something that a ‘friend’ of America like India did not receive. The India-versus-United-Kingdom episode allows one to envisage New Delhi’s possible challenges as it seeks to shatter the P5’s incestuous clique and make room for itself.