Alumna Phoebe Okowa elected to the International Court of Justice
On 12 November 2025, Professor Phoebe Okowa was elected to the International Court of Justice. Professor Okowa was elected after four rounds of voting in the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council. She will take up her seat on the bench immediately.
Professor Okowa studied for the Bachelor of Civil Law at Wadham College Oxford, graduating in 1990, and went on to complete her DPhil under the supervision of Professor Ian Brownlie QC, then Chichele Professor of Public International Law. Her monograph on State Responsibility for Transboundary Air Pollution in International Law was published by Oxford University Press, and remains the definitive work on the legal challenges that environmental harm presents for traditional methods of accountability in international law.
Professor Okowa is currently Professor of Public International Law at Queen Mary University of London. She is a member of the UN International Law Commission and the Institute of International Law. An advocate of the High Court of Kenya, she has acted as counsel and consultant to governments and non-governmental organisations on questions of international law before domestic and international courts.