Kenya’s Okowa faces UN vote for a full nine-year term at the ICJ
Kenyan judge Phoebe Okowa was one of nine candidates for five International Court of Justice seats in a UN vote on Tuesday. She faced Sierra Leone's Charles Jalloh again, in a rematch of the race she won in 2025.
The United Nations voted on Tuesday to elect five judges to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Kenya's Professor Phoebe Okowa was one of nine candidates, The Star reported. She is seeking a full nine-year term. Her current mandate ends on February 5, 2027. Okowa joined the court after winning an election in November 2025, The Star reported. She filled the seat left by Somalia's Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, who resigned. According to The Eastleigh Voice, her term began on November 12, 2025. She is the first Kenyan and only the eighth woman to sit on the ICJ bench. The other candidates are Dapo Akande of the United Kingdom, François Alabrune of France, Mahmoud Daifallah Hmoud of Jordan and Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza of Peru. Also running are Charles Chernor Jalloh of Sierra Leone, Rena Lee of Singapore, Jin-Hyun Paik of South Korea and Marcelo Vázquez-Bermúdez of Ecuador. Okowa and Hmoud are the only two who already sit on the court. The outgoing judges from Brazil, France and India are not running again. To win a seat, a candidate needs an absolute majority in both UN bodies. That means at least eight votes in the 15-member Security Council and 97 in the 193-member General Assembly. The two bodies vote separately. If their results differ,…
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