An Indian lawyer was on Thursday elected a member of the United Nations’ International Law Commission, after he got the most votes among the candidates from Asia-Pacific region. Aniruddha Rajput, a practising lawyer at the Supreme Court, pipped nine other candidates by a significant margin. While Rajput got 160 votes, the nominee from Japan came second with 148 votes. Candidates from Jordan and China were tied at the third spot with 146 votes each. Other countries that had sent their nominees were Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Qatar, South Korea and Vietnam.

Apart from 33-year-old Rajput, 33 others have been elected from five geographical groupings – African, Asia-Pacific, Eastern European, Latin American and Caribbean and Western European states. The newly-elected members will serve five years in office, starting from January 2017. They will be entrusted with the job of codifying international law.

Rajput was a member of an expert group appointed by the Law Commission of India to study and comment upon the Model Bilateral Investment Treaty 2015. An alumnus of the London School of Economics and Political Science, Rajput has also written several books, chapters, articles, conference papers. His areas of expertise in international laws include Sources of International Law, International Arbitration, Law of the Sea, Use of Force, UN Law & Practice and International Trade Law.

Clarification: An older version of this story mentioned that Rajput was the first Indian to be appointed to the ILC, which is incorrect. This has since been rectified.