Prof Phoebe Okowa: Profile of Kenya’s International Court of Justice Judge Nominee

Kenya has nominated the International Law Commission member Professor Phoebe Okowa for election as a Judge of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Dr. Korir Sing’oei on Saturday attached a note by the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kenya to the United Nations (UN) regarding the nomination of Professor Okowa by the Kenya National Group to the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) for election as an ICJ Judge.

The Permanent Mission’s note was presented as compliments to the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Djibouti to the United Nations, in the Kenyan mission’s capacity as Coordinator of the Eastern African Sub-region on Candidatures.

According to the mission, elections will be held at the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council in 2026.

“The highly distinguished Prof. Phoebe Okowa, member of the International Law Commission, is Kenya’s nominee for Judge of the International Court of Justice during the election of 202,” said Dr. Sing’oei.

Before her nomination, Okowa served as a member of the International Law Commission (ILC), the UN body of experts bearing the responsibility of initiating studies and making recommendations for the progressive development of international law and its codification.

Djibouti’s Permanent Mission has been urged by Kenya to circulate the note to the member states of the African Group for their valuable support.

“Kenya is convinced that Professor Okowa is competent and well qualified to contribute to the work of the ICJ,” the communique adds.

Professor Phoebe Okowa profile

Professor Phoebe Okowa is a distinguished Professor of Public International Law and Director of Graduate Studies at Queen Mary University of London which she joined as a senior lecturer in 2002.

An advocate of the High Court of Kenya, the Kenyan nominee has acted as counsel and consultant to governments and non-governmental organizations on questions of international law before domestic and international courts including the ICJ.

Previously, she taught Public International law, Constitutional Law and Private International Law as a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Bristol between 1994 and 2001 and has held visiting appointments at the Universities of Lille, Helsinki Stockholm and WZB Berlin Social Science Center for Global Constitutionalism.

The Kenyan nominee has also lectured for the UN at its Regional Course on International Law for Africa.

In 2011 and 2015, she was the Hauser Global Visiting Professor of Law at New York University, School of Law, while in 2017, she was nominated as an arbiter to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague.

She has also been serving as a member of the Legal Committee at the Commission of Small Island States and International Law since 2021.

Education and recognition

The distinguished Public International Law expert graduated with a First Class Honours in Law (LLB) from the University of Nairobi in 1987.

She then proceeded to the University of Oxford on a Foreign and Commonwealth Office Scholarship, obtaining the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) in 1990.

Prof. Okowa completed her doctoral thesis (D.Phil) at Oxford under the supervision of the Chichele Professor of International Law (Ian Brownlie QC).

Her monograph on State Responsibility for Transboundary Air Pollution published by Oxford University Press remains the definitive work on the legal challenges that environmental harm presents for traditional methods of accountability in International Law.

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The Kenyan nominee has also co-edited Environmental Law and Justice in Context (With Jonas Ebbesson CUP 2009). Her work on the admissibility of claims in International Adjudication has been cited with approval numerous times by domestic courts considering questions of International Law.

Prof. Phoebe is on the International Advisory Board of the Stockholm Centre for International Law and the Executive Committee of the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S) and is UCHV Fellow at Princeton University.

She has written on a wide range of contemporary international law topics.

International Court of Justice

If elected as an ICJ judge, Prof. Phoebe Okowa will join the ranks of Ugandan litgant Julia Sebutinde who has been on the ICJ bench since February 2012 and is currently serving her second term.

Sebutinde is the first African woman to sit on the bench of the international court. Before joining the court, she sat in the High Court of Uganda and the Special Court of Sierra Leone.

ICJ, which is the UN’s main judicial body, settles legal disputes between countries and provides legal advice to international organizations.

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