Nationality: Costa Rica (Latin American and Caribbean States)
Term: 11 March 2021 - 10 March 2030
Assumed full-time duty: 1 October 2021
Elected from: List B on 23 December 2020
Assigned to: Pre-Trial Division
Current chamber: Trial Chamber VI, Pre-Trial Chamber II
Biography
Judge as of 11 March 2021, for a term of nine years.
Prior to joining the ICC, Judge Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godínez has been Associate Professor of International Law at the University for Peace in Costa Rica (2019-), and Costa Rica's Ambassador to the Netherlands (2014-2018). He served as Vice-President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute and Coordinator of the Hague Working Group of the Assembly's Bureau from 2016 to 2018.
For more than 17 years, Judge Ugalde was the coordinator of the international law commission of Costa Rica's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship, and in that capacity acted as the country's senior advisor for the practice and promotion of public international law, international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and for the promotion of Costa Rica's foreign policy on human rights and conflict resolution through international law.
He has advised and represented Costa Rica in cases before the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the Central American Court of Justice, the Inter-American Human Rights System including its Court, the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court. He has also represented Costa Rica at the Hague Conference on Private International Law and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
Judge Ugalde studied law at the University of Costa Rica and the University of Oxford. He is a member of the Bar of Costa Rica, the International Law Association (London), and the American Bar Association. He has been a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration since 2005.
