Kenya’s candidate for a seat on the International Law Commission received a boost after the African Union endorsed her bid to become the first African woman to sit on the United Nations body.
Phoebe Okowa, a professor of public international law at Queen Mary University in London, is seeking to join the body of 34 members who draft, research and expand international law for the UN.
Prof Okowa had been nominated by Kenya and endorsed by the United Kingdom. On Tuesday, she announced the African Union too is backing her bid.
The AU will not have a vote when elections are held next month at the UN General Assembly, but its endorsement is a boost because the continental organisation has 54 members with a vote at the UN.
“[I am] thrilled to learn that today, my candidacy for the UN ILC has been endorsed by the African Union,” she said on Tuesday.
Thirteen candidates from across the continent have filed their papers with the UN, according to a listing published last week. The continent will this time be entitled to nine seats, with no two members coming from the same country. Prof Okowa is the only female candidate from Africa.
In a nomination pitch, Kenya said Prof Okowa’s election will signal “an important step towards making the equality ideal in the Charter of the United Nations a manifest reality”.
Kenya’s permanent representative to the UN, Dr Martin Kimani, told UN members that Prof Okowa, beyond her qualifications, has also built a reputation for consensus, qualities he said are important in multilateral engagements.
“An inspiring woman and an acclaimed international legal scholar, her qualities and qualifications as outlined below speak for themselves,” Dr Kimani said in an earlier pitch to UN member states.
“We believe that the quality of institutions ultimately depends on selecting really good people and wish to lead by example in nominating an exceptionally well qualified female candidate to this important body.”
Created in 1947, the ILC chooses its members from among candidates of UN member states and they serve for five years once elected by a majority of votes through a secret ballot. The next election for the team that starts its term in January 2023 is due next month at the UN General Assembly.
According to the ILC statute, members must be “persons of recognised competence in international law, with no two members being nationals of the same State and that in case of dual nationality a candidate shall be deemed to be a national of the State in which he ordinarily exercises civil and political rights.”
Africa’s other candidates include Yacouba Cisse (Cote d’Ivoire), Aly Fall (Mauritania), Ahmed Amind Fathalla (Egypt), Charles C Jalloh (Sierra Leone and endorsed by Chile and New Zealand), Kalaluka Likando (Zambia), Ahmed Laraba (Algeria), Clement Julius Mashamba (Tanzania), Ivon Mingashang (DRC) and Hassan Chahdi Ouazzani (Morocco).
Others are Allioune Sall (Senegal), Louis Savadogo (Burkina Faso) and Mohamed Muaz Ahmed Tungo (Sudan).
The arrangement for slots is such that Africa will get nine seats, Asia-Pacific seven, three from Eastern Europe, six from Latin America and the Caribbean, and eight from Western Europe. One seat often rotates between Africa and Eastern Europe, and another between Latin America and Asia-Pacific.
Prof Okowa has been a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague and had been drafted to be part of the legal team for Kenya in the maritime case against Somalia at the International Court of Justice.
An advocate of the High Court in Kenya, she has also lectured on international law for the United Nations and published articles and books on emerging issues in that field.
She has promised to help build a body of law “rooted in political reality and of practical use to member states”.
“My work will be informed by my dual experience as an academic and a practitioner of international law, which gives me a strong grasp of both the technical and the practical elements.
