The U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday elected public prosecutor Chikako Taya as a judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
Taya, 55, is the first woman from Japan to be appointed to any of the international courts, and Japan's first candidate for the Yugoslavia war-crimes tribunal, based in The Hague.
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan will begin officially appointing the 27 judges elected Tuesday by the end of summer.
Because Taya received the second-highest number of votes, with 145 out of 172 cast, she is expected to be in the first group confirmed, which will occur in the Netherlands as early as October.