Phoebe Okowa

Phoebe Nyawade Okowa is a Kenyan lawyer and Professor of Public International Law and Director of Graduate Studies at Queen Mary University of London. In 2021 she was elected to the International Law Commission for a period of five years, starting January 1, 2023, becoming the first African woman to serve as a member of the Commission. In 2017 she was appointed a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague by Kenya. 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 including the International Court of Justice.

The government of Kenya nominated Okowa for election to the UN International Law Commission in May 2021. She was co-nominated by the United Kingdom and endorsed by the African Union. Okowa received 162 votes in the United Nations General Assembly.

The International Law Commission (ILC) is a body of experts responsible for helping develop and codify international law. Under the ILC Statute, its members “shall be persons of recognised competence in international law”. It is composed of 34 individuals who are elected by the United Nations General Assembly for a five year term.

Okowa was born in Kericho on 1 January 1965 to Luo parents. She graduated at the top of her class with a Bachelor of Law (LLB) with First Class Honours from the University of Nairobi, Kenya in 1987. Okowa was the first woman to be awarded a first-class honours degree in the history of the Faculty of Law of the University of Nairobi. She was called to the Kenyan Bar as an Advocate in 1990.

Okowa then studied at Wadham College at the University of Oxford on a Foreign and Commonwealth Office Scholarship, obtaining the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) in 1990. She completed her doctoral thesis (D.Phil.) at Oxford in 1994 under the supervision of Professor Sir Ian Brownlie, the Chichele Professor of International Law. 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.

Okowa taught Public International Law, British Constitutional Law and Private International Law as a member of the Faculty of Law at the University of Bristol. She has held visiting appointments at the University of Lille, University of Helsinki, Stockholm University and WZB Berlin Social Science Center for Global Constitutionalism and has lectured for the United Nations at its Regional Course on International Law for Africa. In 2011 and 2015 she was Hauser Global Visiting Professor of Law at New York University School of Law.

Okowa is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the African Yearbook of International and Comparative Law and of the Advisory Board of the African Association of International Law. She is a member of The Society of Legal Scholars.

Okowa sits 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).

Okowa has acted as counsel and consultant to governments and non-governmental organisations on questions of international law before domestic and international courts including the International Court of Justice, involving cases concerning the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the Legal Consequences of the Separation of the Chagos Islands Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965 and concerning maritime delimitation.

Books

• State Responsibility for Transboundary Air Pollution in International Law (Oxford University Press, 2000) ISBN 9780198260974
• Environmental Law and Justice in Context, Phoebe Okowa and Jonas Ebbesson (eds.) (Cambridge University Press, 2009) ISBN 9780521879682

Journal articles

• ‘The Pitfalls of Unilateral Legislation in International Law: Two Case Studies’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol. 69, Issue 3 (2020) pp. 685-717
• ‘Sovereignty Contests and the Exploitation of Natural Resources in Conflict Zones’, Current Legal Problems, Vol. 66, Issue 1 (2013) pp. 33-73
• ‘The International Court of Justice and the Georgia/Russia Dispute’, Human Rights Law Review, Vol. 11, Issue 4 (2011) pp. 739-757
• ‘State and Individual Criminal Responsibility in Internal Conflicts: Contours of an Evolving Relationship’, Finnish Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 20 (2009) pp. 143-188
• ‘Case Concerning Ahmadou Sadio Diallo (Republic of Guinea v. Democratic Republic of Congo)’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol. 57, Issue 1 (2008) pp. 219-224
• ‘Congo’s War: The Legal Dimension of a Protracted Conflict’, British Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 77, Issue 1 (2006) pp. 203-255
• ‘Case Concerning Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo’, International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol. 55, Issue 3 (2006) pp. 742-753
• ‘Procedural Obligations in International Environmental Agreements’, British Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 67, Issue 1 (1996) pp. 275-336
• ‘The EC and International Environmental Agreements’, Yearbook of European Law, Vol. 15, Issue 1 (1994) pp. 169-192

Chapters in books

• ‘Atmospheric Pollution in International Law’, in Lavanya Rajamani and Jacqueline Peel (eds.), Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford University Press, 2021) ISBN 9780198849155 pp. 475–491
• ‘Principle 18: Notification and Assistance in Case of Emergency’, in Jorge E. Viñuales (ed.), The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development: A Commentary (Oxford, 2015) ISBN 9780199686773 pp. 471-492
• ‘The International Court and the Legacy of the Barcelona Traction Case’, in Charles Jalloh and Olufemi Elias (eds.), Shielding Humanity: Essays in International Law in Honour of Judge Abdul Koroma (Brill, 2015) ISBN 9789004236509 pp. 104-132
• ‘The Security Council, the African Union and the International Criminal Court: Anatomy of a Problematic Relationship’, in Jonas Ebbesson, Marie Jacobsson et al. (eds.), International Law and Changing Perceptions of Security: Liber Amicorum Said Mahmoudi (Brill Nijhoff, 2014) ISBN 9789004274570 pp. 228-234
• ‘Interpreting Constitutive Instruments of International Criminal Tribunals: Reflections on the Special Court for Sierra Leone’, in Malgosia Fitzmaurice, Olufemi Elias and Panos Merkouris (eds.), Treaty Interpretation and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: 30 Years On (Martinus Nijhoff, 2010) ISBN 9789004181045 pp. 333-355
• ‘Issues of Admissibility and the Law on International Responsibility’, in Malcolm Evans (ed.), International Law (Oxford University Press, 3rd ed, 2010) pp. 472-503
• ‘Environmental Justice in Situations of Armed Conflict’, in Phoebe Okowa and Jonas Ebbesson (eds.), Environmental Law and Justice in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2009) ISBN 9780521879682 pp. 231-252
• ‘The Settlement of International Environmental Disputes: A Re-appraisal’, in Malcolm Evans (ed.), Remedies in International Law: The Institutional Dilemma (Hart Publishing, 1998) ISBN 9781901362350 pp. 157-172

Okowa primarily resides in Cambridge, UK. She is married to Dr Leon Bennum, Chief Scientist of The Biodiversity Consultancy.