Following is the text of the press release:
September 9, 2002

United Nations -- American law professor Ruth Wedgwood was elected September 9 to the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), the implementation body for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is considered by many scholars and international lawyers to be one of the most important international human rights treaties now in existence.

The UNHRC is comprised of 18 persons serving in their private capacities, nine of whom are elected every two years to serve four-year terms. The Committee's principle functions are to review the required periodic reports that states parties must file with the committee on the implementation of each provision of the covenant and to adjudicate complaints between or among states parties. The committee meets three times annually in three-week sessions, alternating between New York and Geneva. The newly elected members will begin their new terms on January 1, 2003

Wedgwood, 52, is currently a visiting professor of international law and diplomacy and director of the Program on International Law and Organizations at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC. She is also a distinguished professor of international law at Yale University, where she teaches international human rights law.

Wedgwood joins candidates from India, Japan, Switzerland, France, Tunisia, Argentina, Poland and Panama who were also elected September 9 to serve on the UNHRC. The election took place in New York in an ad hoc meeting of states parties to the covenant.