1. In conformity with articles 30, paragraph 4, and of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the twentieth meeting of States parties to the Covenant will be convened by the Secretary-General at United Nations Headquarters on Thursday, 14 September 2000, for the purpose of electing nine members of the Human Rights Committee from a list of persons nominated by States parties, to replace those whose terms are due to expire on 31 December 2000.

2. The curricula vitae of 16 candidates received by 25 May 2000 are reproduced in document CCPR/SP/56.

3. The present document contains the biographical data of two further candidates, received after 25 May 2000.

Name	Nominated by
Yakoub Youssef AL-MAHINI	Kuwait
Ivan SHEARER	Australia

Nationality: Kuwaiti

Telephone: Home 5334833, Mobile 9824888

Academic qualifications

Diploma from the Hendon Police College, United Kingdom, 1962.

Bachelor's degree in law from Alexandria University.

Master's degree in criminal justice from the American University, Washington.

Professional posts

Officer at the Abu Huleifa police station for one year.

Head of the Shu'aiba police station for one year.

Public relations officer for one and a half years.

District officer at the Directorate-General of Public Security.

Officer at al-Marqab police station for six years.

Head of the Criminal Investigation Department in the al-Udeiliya area for two years.

Head of the Traffic Prosecutions Department at Hawali for two years.

Director of the Criminal Investigation Department in Kuwait City for three years.

Director-General of Criminal Investigations for 10 years.

Assistant Deputy Minister for Preventive Security Affairs for four years.

Assistant Deputy Minister for Criminal Security Affairs for one year.

Representative of the Ministry of the Interior on the National Assembly's Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, 1993-1996.

Member of the Governing Body of the Department of Social Security for 10 years.

Member of the Governing Body of the Kuwaiti Ports Authority for the past three years.

Member of the Governing Body of the Public Agency for Youth and Sports for the past year.

Chairman of the Advisory Board at the Ministry of the Interior for two years.

Challis Professor of International Law, the University of Sydney, since 1993.

Formerly Professor of Law (and Dean of the Faculty of Law, 1984-1990) at the University of New South Wales, 1975-1992. Awarded the title of Emeritus Professor by the Council of the University of New South Wales, 1992.

Made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM), 1995.

Educated at the University of Adelaide (Bachelor of Laws, 1960, Master of Laws, 1964) and at Northwestern University, Chicago (Doctor of Juridical Science, 1968).

Taught at the University of Adelaide 1963-1974, prior to appointment to the University of New South Wales, Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford 1978. Visiting appointments at the University of Cologne, the Max Planck Institute of Foreign Public and International Law, Heidelberg, the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, the Naval War College, Newport Rhode Island and the Australian National University.

Admitted as a barrister in the Supreme Courts of New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria, and in the High Court of Australia.

Main teaching and research field: public international law. Special fields of interest: human rights; the law of armed conflict (including international humanitarian law); international criminal law (including extradition law); and the international law of the sea. Other subjects taught include maritime law, legal institutions, torts, legal ethics and constitutional law.

With respect to human rights, recent activities include: Member of the International Law Association's Committee on Extradition and Human Rights, 1992-1998; Member of the Dissemination Committee, Australian Red Cross, since 1993; lectures on human rights to courses for visiting government legal officers from Bangladesh and China sponsored by the Australian Human Rights and Equal opportunity Commission (HREOC), 1998-1999; a course of lectures on human rights for the Ho Chi Minh Academy of Social Sciences, Hanoi, Viet Nam, under the sponsorship of the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law, University of Sydney, 1994; a course of lectures to teachers of human rights in Indonesian universities, jointly sponsored by the Sam Ratulangi University and the International Committee of the Red Cross, Manado, Indonesia, May 1999.

Current appointments include: Member of the Panel of Arbitrators, nominated by Australia, of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, The Hague (since 1986); member of the List of Arbitrators, nominated by Australia under article 2, annex VII to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (since 1999); Vice-President, Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law; Vice-President, Australian Branch, International Law Association; elected member, International Institute of Humanitarian Law, San Remo; member of the Editorial Board, Australian Yearbook of International Law, and of the Adelaide Law Review; immediate past editor, Sydney Law Review.

In August 1999 served as Judge ad hoc, nominated by the Governments of Australia and New Zealand, on the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in the Southern Bluefin Tuna Cases (Australia and New Zealand v. Japan): Request for Provisional Measures.

Was International Law Adviser to the Government of the Kingdom of Lesotho under the United Nations Development Programme, 1971-1973, and was a member of the Lesotho delegation to the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (Caracas session, 1974). Has advised the Governments of several South Pacific countries on international law under the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation (London). Was Rapporteur of the Review of Commonwealth Extradition Arrangements for the Commonwealth Secretariat (London), 1982. Was consultant to the Australian Agency for International Development (AUSAID) on international law aspects of bridge construction across the Mekong River (Laos/Thailand and Viet Nam/Cambodia), 1994-1995.

Was Special Consultant in International Law in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Canberra, on leave from the University, throughout 1991. Member of the Australian delegations to the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly, 1992, and to the Meetings of States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1995 and 1996.

Furnished a consultant's report to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome, on high seas fisheries, 1992.

Recent activities include: participation in the Madrid Plan of Action to revise the law of armed conflict at sea, sponsored by the International Institute of Humanitarian Law, San Remo, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, 1987-1994; Rapporteur of the International Law Association's Committee on International Law in National Courts, 1992-1998; Member of the International Law Association's Committee on Maritime Neutrality, 1990-1998. In February 1994 gave three invited lectures on aspects of the international law of the sea at the International Maritime Organization's Maritime Law Institute, Malta, as Arvid Parbo Visiting Lecturer.

Recent publications include:

"Extraditing heads of State", 10 Public Law Review 179-184 (1999).

"Extradition and human rights", 68 Australian Law Journal 451-455 (1994).

"The Human Rights Committee and the Toonen case", 69 Australian Law Journal 600-609 (1995).

Starke's International Law, 11th edition (I.A. Shearer, ed., Butterworths, London, 1994).

"The relationship between international law and domestic law", in B.R. Opeskin and D.R. Rothwell (eds), International Law and Australian Federalism, 34-68 (University of Melbourne Press, 1997).

"Jurisdiction", in S. Blay, R. Piotrowicz and B.M. Tsamenyi (eds), Public International Law: An Australian Perspective, 161-192 (Oxford University Press, 1997).

"The debate to assess the need for new international accords", in R.J. Grunawalt, J.E. King, and R.S. McClain (eds), Protection of the Environment During Armed Conflict, International Law Studies 1996, Vol. 69, 546-555 (Naval War College, Newport RI, 1997).

"Navigation issues in the Asia-Pacific region", in James Crawford and D.R. Rothwell (eds), The Law of the Sea: Asian-Pacific Perspectives, 199-222 (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1994).

"The implications of non-treaty law making: customary law and its implications", in P.Alston and M. Chan (eds), Treaty-Making and Australia 93-103 (Federation Press, Sydney, 1995).

"Enforcement of laws against delinquent vessels in Australia's maritime zones" in D. MacKinnon and D. Sherwood (eds), Policing Australia's Offshore Zones 239-253 (Wollongong Papers on Maritime Policy, No. 9, University of Wollongong, 1997).

"High seas: drift gillnets, highly migratory species and marine mammals", in E.L. Miles and T. Kuribayashi (eds), The Law of the Sea in the 1990s: A Further Framework for International Cooperation 237-258 (Law of the Sea Institute, Honolulu, 1992).

Recent unpublished addresses relating to human rights include:

"The Pinochet case: no asylum for international criminals?", International Law Association (Australian Branch), 5 August 1999.

"Australia, the European Union and human rights", address to the Sydney Forum for Europe, 18 April 1997.

"What to do with Pol Pot?", to the conference "The Changing Face of Conflict: How Effective is International Humanitarian Law?", Australian Red Cross and International Committee of the Red Cross, University of Melbourne, 8-9 July 1997.

"The relationship between international law and national law", LAWASIA Conference, Seoul, Republic of Korea, 7-11 September 1999.

"How humane is international humanitarian law?", New Zealand Defence Forces Seminar, Wellington, New Zealand, 5-6 November 1999.

"Legal restraints on waging war", Australian Red Cross and Law Society of New South Wales, Law Week, 21 May 1999.