Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald, the President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), warmly welcomes the unanimous appointment by the Security Council on 11 August 1999 of Carla Del Ponte as Prosecutor for both the ICTY and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for a period of four years.

Carla Del Ponte, who will officially start work on 15 September 1999, will be the third Prosecutor, following Justice Richard Goldstone of South Africa, who served between July 1994 and September 1996, and Justice Louise Arbour of Canada, who served between October 1996 and September 1999.

Justice Arbour will take up her new duties at the Canadian Supreme Court in mid-September, and the timely appointment of Carla Del Ponte will allow for a smooth and efficient transition.

President McDonald remarked, "I welcome the appointment of Carla Del Ponte as Prosecutor. As an experienced Prosecutor, she brings considerable skills and practical knowledge to the position. I am confident that she will build on the important work of her predecessors."

Biographical note

A national of Switzerland, Carla Del Ponte was born in Lugano on 9 February 1947. She joins the ICTY and the ICTR from her previous position as Swiss Attorney-General, to which she was appointed in 1994.

Prior to that, she worked as an investigating magistrate from September 1981 and later became a public prosecutor, working with the office of the Lugano District Attorney.

Since 1981, she has been involved in various high profile cases, including organized crime, financial and economic crimes, terrorism, drug trafficking, money laundering, illegal trafficking in arms, as well as international legal assistance.

Fluent in four languages (English, French, Italian and German) she has participated at a number of international conferences and has written various articles in different languages.