The International Court of Justice in The Hague, the principal judicial arm of the United Nations, elected Phoebe Okowa, a Kenyan professor who has accused Israel of “apartheid,” as a judge on Nov. 12.
Okowa secured the required majority votes of the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council on Wednesday after multiple rounds of voting. When she is sworn in in two months, she will replace Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, who resigned. The latter’s term was slated to expire in February 2027.
Namibia hired Okawa to prosecute its 2024 case against Israel before the U.N. high court, in which it alleged that the Jewish state was guilty of illegal practices in areas that the United Nations considers Palestinian territory.
The Oxford-educated jurist accused Israel of carrying out racist policies, amounting to “apartheid.”
“Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territory grossly violate its obligations under international law,” she said. She asked the court to “make it clear that the prohibition of apartheid is not limited to southern Africa in the last century. It extends to Israel’s policies in the occupied Palestinian territory today.”
She also claimed that Israel’s entry to the United Nations was based on the creation of a Palestinian state.
Okowa was among the signatories on a 2020 open letter to Israeli officials condemning plans to apply Israeli sovereignty to areas of Judea and Samaria.
The 60-year-old is the first African woman to serve on the International Law Commission and the first Kenyan legal expert to represent a country at the U.N. high court.
In 2022, the Kenyan government named Okowa an elder of the Order of the Burning Spear for her “distinguished service in international law,” per the U.N. court.
