Lord Chancellor Shabana Mahmood has nominated three barristers for election as the next UK judge of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) to succeed Tim Eicke KC, who is retiring from the post.

Two nominees are from Essex Court Chambers – Hugh Mercer KC and Sam Wordsworth KC – with Deok Joo Rhee KC of 39 Essex Chambers being the third UK-nominated candidate.

The ECtHR was established under the European Convention on Human Rights and is based in Strasbourg. A member of the court is elected for each of the 46 member states of the Council of Europe by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) from lists of three candidates proposed by each state.

Mercer, who took silk in 2008 and is the current head of the Bar Council’s International Committee, has a distinguished European pedigree, having served as an advocate before that court and the Court of Justice of the European Union. He has also practised in Northern Ireland and Brussels.

Mercer’s work spans public and administrative law, human rights law, EU law and navigating the UK’s post-EU sensibilities, including challenges to the Windsor Framework. He has also sat as a deputy High Court judge.

Mercer currently leads the Delegation of the UK Bars and Law Societies to the CCBE, representing European bar associations and law societies, including the Bar Council and the UK Law Societies as associate members.

The CCBE and the Council of Europe recently secured endorsement for a convention to protect the profession of lawyers, which was ratified in March and seen as instrumental in protecting lawyers’ human rights.

Wordsworth, meanwhile, has an impressively strong background in public international law and commercial and investor-state arbitration, as well as ICJ cases. He is a professor of investment arbitration at King’s College London. He took silk in 2013.

He has represented clients, including governments, before numerous international tribunals, such as the International Court of Justice and tribunals established regarding the Law of the Sea.

His ECtHR appearances include those for both the UK government and Human Rights Watch, spanning issues ranging from whether the UK’s human rights obligations extend to its actions outside its territory, to the implementation of UN sanctions and their potential impact on human rights.

Deok Joo Rhee KC, a UK barrister at 39 Essex Chambers, is the third candidate. Rhee joined the set in 2016, arriving from 11 King’s Bench Walk, where she was called in 1998. She took silk in 2017 and is active within the Administrative Law Bar Association, where she sits on the executive committee.

She is a former member of Liberty’s Council and former chair of Liberty’s Conference and Appeals Committee, one of the UK’s leading charities which promotes human rights.

Rhee specialises in all areas of EU, public, administrative and human rights law, with cases spanning free movement, immigration and asylum, employment and public international law. She is interested in the intersection of multiple legal systems (domestic, European and international) and economic and social policy interfaces.

Rhee’s work spans panel appointments for the Attorney General, and she has acted for and advised the previous government and Labour when in opposition, NGOS, public authorities and regulatory bodies on a range of human rights, EU and other matters.

The second stage of the process will take place in the Council of Europe, where the PACE Committee on the Election of Judges conducts interviews before they are presented at plenary for later election in June.