Quick Take
- States Parties elected seven judges to the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea on 19 June 2026.
- The Bimal N. Patel ITLOS election gives India one of those seven seats, for nine years from 1 October 2026.
- India has had a judge on the 21-member Tribunal without a break since 1996.
The 36th Meeting of States Parties elected Professor Bimal N. Patel of India to the Law of the Sea Tribunal on 19 June 2026.
The seat is a continuation, not a gain. India has had a judge on the 21-member Tribunal without a break since 1996, its published list of members shows. Two Indians have sat there.
Peoples Feed checked the Bimal N. Patel ITLOS election against the Tribunal’s own release, ITLOS/Press 389 of 19 June 2026. Seven members were elected. Five are newly elected.
Bimal N. Patel is Vice Chancellor of Rashtriya Raksha University at Gandhinagar in Gujarat. The terms of one third of the Tribunal’s members expire every three years.
What the Bimal N. Patel ITLOS Election Changes
The election fills seven of the Tribunal’s 21 seats for nine years from 1 October 2026. One of them goes to Bimal N. Patel. Five of the seven are newly elected.
ITLOS/Press 389 names the seven. Sylvia Ama Adusu of Ghana, George Rodrigo Bandeira Galindo of Brazil and Slim Laghmani of Tunisia are listed as newly elected. So are Lan-Anh Thi Nguyen of Viet Nam and Bimal N. Patel.
Two sitting judges kept their seats. The Tribunal’s members page names them as Roman Kolodkin of the Russian Federation and Liesbeth Lijnzaad of the Netherlands.
A candidate needed a two-thirds majority of the States Parties present and voting, the release states. It does not publish the vote counts. Peoples Feed could not find them on any United Nations page it opened.
The meeting ran from 15 to 19 June 2026 at United Nations Headquarters in New York. It was the 36th Meeting of States Parties to the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea.
India Has Had a Judge on the Tribunal Since 1996
India has had a judge on the Tribunal without a break since 1996. That is 30 years by the time the new terms begin. The Tribunal’s list of members since 1996 records two Indian judges.
P. Chandrasekhara Rao sat from 1996 to 2017 and was President of the Tribunal from 1999 to 2002. The Tribunal’s list marks his name with the asterisk it uses for judges who have died. No date is given.
Neeru Chadha has been a member since 1 October 2017. She has been Vice-President since October 2023, six years into her term. From 2019 to 2023 she sat on the special chamber for the Mauritius and Maldives boundary case.
Chadha was President of the Seabed Disputes Chamber from 2020 to 2023. None of that seniority carries across a change of judge. The seat India holds from 1 October 2026 is a first-term seat, held by a member with no office in the Tribunal.
| Judge from India | Term on the Tribunal | Office held at the Tribunal |
|---|---|---|
| P. Chandrasekhara Rao | 1996 to 2017 | President, 1999 to 2002 |
| Neeru Chadha | Member since 1 October 2017 | Vice-President since October 2023. President of the Seabed Disputes Chamber, 2020 to 2023 |
| Bimal N. Patel | Nine years from 1 October 2026 | None |
The Record Behind the Election
The record behind the election is a university post and a United Nations seat. Bimal N. Patel sits on the United Nations International Law Commission. His Commission term runs from 2023 to 2027.
The Commission’s 77th session ran from 27 April to 30 July 2026. On 13 July 2026 Bimal N. Patel introduced the report of one of its working groups. He chairs the group on succession of States in respect of State responsibility.
His United Nations curriculum vitae, filed for the 2021 Commission election, records the earlier work. It puts him at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague from 1995 to 2008.
The same document places him at Gujarat National Law University from 2008 to 2019. He has been a member of the National Security Advisory Board since 2016. Membership of the 21st Law Commission of India is listed too.
Two doctorates in international law sit in that record. The university’s profile page for him records a PhD from Leiden University in 2015 and a second from Jaipur National University in 2013.
A Press Information Bureau release of 16 March 2026 confirms the designation. It names him as Vice Chancellor of Rashtriya Raksha University at a roundtable for defence attachés from 24 countries.
What Happens From 1 October 2026
The new terms begin on 1 October 2026 and run to 2035. Akashvani News, the Prasar Bharati news service, reported the 2026 to 2035 term on 19 June 2026.
That report said the External Affairs Ministry’s spokesperson, Randhir Jaiswal, congratulated the newly elected members in a post on social media. Peoples Feed has not seen the post itself.
The bench he joins is busy. Its President, Tomas Heidar, told the June meeting that three new cases had come in. That report sits in the Tribunal’s release of 16 June 2026.
Two cases filed in June 2026 concern the International Seabed Authority. On 18 July 2026 the Seabed Disputes Chamber issued orders on provisional measures in both, the Tribunal’s releases state.
One question stays open. No United Nations page opened for this article says whether Bimal N. Patel keeps his Commission seat after 1 October 2026.
The vote counts are missing too. ITLOS/Press 389 does not publish how many States Parties voted or how many rounds the election took.
What this means for you: If you work on maritime boundaries, seabed mining or fisheries law, a new Indian judge joins the Tribunal on 1 October 2026. Watch the two seabed cases in which the Tribunal’s chamber ordered provisional measures on 18 July 2026.
Peoples Feed Insight
Read this as a continuation, not a win. India held one of 21 seats before 19 June 2026 and holds one after. What changes is seniority. Neeru Chadha spent six years on the bench before the Tribunal made her Vice-President, and the incoming member starts with none of that. Two dates are worth marking. The nine-year term opens on 1 October 2026. Then watch the International Law Commission in 2027, because Bimal N. Patel chairs a working group there and his Commission term runs to 2027. Whether one person can carry both is the question no document answers.
By Sunny Panwar, Correspondent
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