Professor Dapo Akande, a lawyer whose legal education began in Nigeria, was elected on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, as a judge of the International Court of Justice, the United Nations' principal judicial organ. He will sit for a nine-year term and becomes the first UK judge on the court in nine years, according to Punch Newspapers.
The election caps a career of close to thirty years in public international law, spanning teaching, scholarship and argument before international tribunals.
Why it matters
The ICJ settles disputes between states and gives advisory opinions on questions of international law. A seat on its bench is one of the most senior positions in the profession, and the choice of judges shapes how the court reads the law for years.
For Nigeria, Akande's election draws attention to a legal training that began locally before an international career. For the United Kingdom, it restores a presence on the bench that had been absent for nearly a decade, a result The Guardian described as a significant diplomatic win.
From Nigerian training to Oxford's Chichele chair
Akande holds the Chichele Professorship of Public International Law in the University of Oxford's Faculty of Law, according to his university profile cited by Punch Newspapers. He is a Fellow of All Souls College and co-directs the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict. He also serves on the UN International Law Commission and practises as a barrister at Essex Court Chambers.
His teaching has taken him beyond Oxford. He has held visiting professorships in the United States, Europe and Australia, including at Yale Law School, and in 2015 was the Sir Ninian Stephen Visiting Scholar at the University of Melbourne Law School's Asia-Pacific Centre for Military Law.
His research covers the law of international organisations, the law of armed conflict, international criminal law, cyber operations and the settlement of international disputes.
His writing includes Oppenheim's International Law: The United Nations, published by Oxford University Press in 2017, which earned a 2019 Certificate of Merit from the American Society of International Law. He co-edited The Oxford Guide to International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and 21st Century Challenges: Poverty, Conflict and the Environment, both from 2020, and Practitioners Guide to the Application of Human Rights Law in Armed Conflict from 2016.
He was part of the International Group of Experts behind the Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the international law governing cyber operations, published in 2017, and convenes the Oxford Process on International Law Protections in Cyberspace. Between 2012 and 2017 he co-directed the Oxford Martin Programme on Human Rights for Future Generations, and from 2014 to 2019 helped lead a European Research Council-funded project, "The Individualisation of War: Reconfiguring the Ethics, Law and Politics of Armed Conflict".
A practitioner's record across international courts
Akande's work has not stayed in the classroom. He has appeared as advocate, counsel, adviser or expert before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the European Court of Human Rights, the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights, the International Criminal Court and World Trade Organization panels, Punch Newspapers reports.
He has also advised in proceedings in England, including before the UK Supreme Court, as well as in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. In 2024 the President of the World Bank, in his capacity as chair of the institution's Administrative Council, named him to the panel of arbitrators at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes. He was later appointed to ad hoc committees hearing applications to annul ICSID awards.
Governments on every continent have sought his advice, along with bodies including the United Nations, the African Union Commission, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Council of Europe and NATO. He has sat on the United States Department of State's Advisory Committee on International Law, the UK Ministry of Defence's AI Ethics Advisory Panel and the International Committee of the Red Cross Global Advisory Board on Digital Threats During Conflict.
He founded EJIL:Talk!, the scholarly blog of the European Journal of International Law, and has served on the editorial or advisory boards of several international legal journals. He has been a trustee of the Rhodes Trust and of the British Institute of International and Comparative Law, and a counsellor of the American Society of International Law.
In a statement carried by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, Akande said he was honoured by the confidence member states had shown in him. He promised to serve independently and to decide cases through a faithful and impartial application of the law, and said he looked forward to helping the court settle disputes by peaceful means.
At the UN General Assembly, the UK's national statement said Akande brings the independence, legal rigour, judgement and breadth of perspective the court needs, according to GOV.UK.
His election was welcomed in legal circles, with the European Journal of International Law's blog publishing a congratulatory post.
What to watch next is the composition of the court as Akande takes his seat and how the bench approaches disputes involving states that have long followed his scholarship on armed conflict and cyber operations.
