Prof. Dapo Akande, a Nigerian-trained legal scholar, has been elected as a Judge of the International Court of Justice, ICJ, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.
Akande was elected on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, for a nine-year term, making history as the first British judge to sit on the World Court in nine years.
The Oxford Don is currently the Chichele Professor of Public International Law at Oxford University, Fellow of All Souls College, Co-Director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, member of the UN International Law Commission and a barrister at Essex Court Chambers.
With nearly three decades of experience in public international law, Akande has held visiting professorships at leading institutions including Yale Law School in the United States, as well as in Europe and Australia. In 2015, he was Sir Ninian Stephen Visiting Scholar at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Military Law, University of Melbourne.
His expertise spans law of international organisations, laws of armed conflict, international criminal law, cyber operations and international dispute settlement.
He is author of _Oppenheim’s International Law: The United Nations_ (OUP, 2017), which won the American Society of International Law’s Certificate of Merit in 2019, and co-editor of _The Oxford Guide to International Humanitarian Law_ (2020), _Human Rights and 21st Century Challenges_ (2020) and _Practitioners Guide to the Application of Human Rights Law in Armed Conflict_ (2016).
He was also part of the International Group of Experts that produced the Tallinn Manual 2.0 on International Law Applicable to Cyber Operations (2017).
Akande convened the Oxford Process on International Law Protections in Cyberspace, co-directed the Oxford Martin Programme on Human Rights for Future Generations (2012-2017) and co-led the European Research Council project on “The Individualisation of War” (2014-2019).
Beyond scholarship, he has appeared as counsel, advocate and expert before the ICJ, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, European Court of Human Rights, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, International Criminal Court and WTO panels, and has advised in proceedings before the UK Supreme Court and courts in Australia, New Zealand and the US.
In 2024, he was designated to the ICSID panel of arbitrators by the President of the World Bank and later appointed to ad hoc annulment committees.
He has advised governments worldwide and international organisations including the UN, African Union Commission, Commonwealth Secretariat, Council of Europe and NATO, and served on advisory bodies such as the US State Department’s Advisory Committee on International Law, the UK Ministry of Defence AI Ethics Advisory Panel and the ICRC Global Advisory Board on Digital Threats During Conflict.
A founding editor of EJIL:Talk! and former trustee of the Rhodes Trust, British Institute of International and Comparative Law and counsellor of the American Society of International Law, Akande said he was honoured by the confidence of member states.
“I pledge to serve with independence and to deciding cases on the basis of a faithful and impartial application of the law,” he said in a statement issued by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office on Tuesday, adding that he looked forward to contributing to peaceful settlement of disputes.
