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O-Gon Kwon (born 12 September 1953, Cheongju, South Korea) is a noted Korean and international judge and is one of the three judges in the trial for Slobodan Milošević. He also sat on the bench for the trial of former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic.[1][2]
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A judge at the Seoul District Court in 1979 and 1980, he became Assistant Legal Advisor to the President of the Republic of Korea, a position he held until 1984. Between 1986 and 1990, he was a judge at the Seoul Criminal District Court and Judge at the Daegu High Court. From 1990 to 1992, Judge Kwon was Planning Director at the Ministry of Court Administration. From 1992 to 1993, he was a Research Judge at the Supreme Court of Korea. Between 1993 and 1999, he served as a Presiding Judge, successively in the Changwon, Suwon, and Seoul District Courts. In the meantime, he also served as Director of Research at the Constitutional Court of Korea from 1997 to 1999. He was a Presiding Judge at the Daegu High Court when elected as a Judge of the ICTY by the UN General Assembly.
At the ICTY, Judge Kwon served on the bench which heard the trial of Slobodan Milošević, and has also been involved in several pre-trial proceedings, contempt trials and sentencing judgments. Currently a member of Trial Chamber II, Judge Kwon sits on the bench hearing the case of Prosecutor v. Popović et al. He is also a member of the Referral Bench, which determines whether certain cases pending before the Tribunal are suitable to be referred for trial in national courts. In addition, he is a member of the Tribunal’s Rules Committee, which is charged with proposing additions and modifications to the Rules of Procedure and Evidence. In addition to his work at the ICTY, Judge Kwon has served as a member of the Board of Editors of the Journal of International Criminal Justice (Oxford) since 2007.
Judge Kwon holds an LL.B. (1976) from Seoul National University Law School and an LL.M. (1983) from the Graduate School of Seoul National University. He took his Bar Apprenticeship in the Judicial Research and Training Institute at the Supreme Court of Korea (1979). Judge Kwon also holds an LL.M. (1985) from Harvard Law School, U.S.A. He received a “Moran” National Order of Merit from the President of the Republic of Korean in September 2008.[3]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is an entity which is chartered as a court of law by the United Nations to investigate and prosecute war crimes, which occurred throughout the Balkans in the 1990s. The Tribunal adjudicated conflict attrosities such as ethnic cleansing, war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. In 2001, Judge O-Gon Kwon was sworn in as Judge of the Tribunal on November 17. As one of the Tribunal's judges his responsibilities included determining the guilt or innocenence of those accused of perpetrating war crimes during the Balkan conflict, and he was tasked with passing sentence on the convicted.[4][5][6]
By virtue of a mandate (elected by his peers), he became Vice President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in November 2008.[6][7]
He was re-elected to a new two year term as Vice President in November 2009.[8]
In 2011, Judge O-Gon Kwon was elected by the Coalition for the International Criminal Court as one of the five members in the Independent Panel on International Criminal Court Judicial Elections. The panel was established to adopt the responsibilities of candidate selection for the International Criminal Courts and promote impartiality which has not always been present in the previous selections carried out at the United Nations. Each member an experienced veteran in the field of international law and legal procedure, the panel is to base its selections in unbiased analysis while providing a global perspective with the five members representing their respective continents. Judge O-Gon Kwon is the Panel member representing Asia. [9]
Judge Kwon heard the case of Prosecutor v. Popović et al. The ICTY judges agreed to join the nine defendant's trials linked to Srebrenica’s massacre, who were all senior Bosnian Serb army, VRS, and police officers. Vujadin Popović - indicted for genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, extermination, murder, persecutions, forcible transfer, deportation. Others under concurrent indicment in this case with the same or similar charges are Ljubisa Beara, Ljubomir Borovcanin, Milan Gvero, Radivoje Miletic, Drago Nikolic, Vinko Pandurevic, Zdravko Tolimir and Milorad Trbic.[10][11][12]
Judge Kwon is the Presiding Judge for the case of former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic.[13]
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)