Judge Sang-Hyun SONG (Republic of Korea), President

Judge as of 11 March, 2003, for a term of three years and re-elected in 2006, for a further term of nine years. President of the Court as of 11 March, 2009, for a term of three years. Assigned to the Appeals Division. Elected from the Asian Group of States, list A.

Judge Song (1941) has extensive practical and academic experience in the area of court management, civil and criminal procedures, and the law of evidence. For more than thirty years, he taught as a professor of law at Seoul National University Law School, beginning in 1972. He has also held visiting professorships at a number of law schools, including Harvard, New York University, Melbourne and Wellington. Judge Song started his legal career as judge-advocate in the Korean army and later as a foreign attorney in a New York law firm. He serves as a member of the advisory committee to the Korean Supreme Court and the Ministry of Justice. As such, he took an initiative in the reform of the national litigation system and the criminal justice system, particularly in the reform of the Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Court Rules of Criminal Procedure, and the prison system. Judge Song has vast experience in relevant areas of international law, principally in the domains of international humanitarian law and human rights law. He is co-founder of the Legal Aid Centre for Women, and of the Childhood Leukaemia Foundation in Seoul, and the Vice-President of UNICEF/KOREA. Judge Song is also the respected author of several publications on relevant legal issues.