Five judges elected to the International Court of Justice for nine-year terms

3 November 2026

The United Nations has elected five judges to the International Court of Justice, each for a nine-year term beginning on 6 February 2027. The five are Dapo Akande (United Kingdom), Francois Alabrune (France), Mahmoud Daifallah Hmoud (Jordan), Rena Lee (Singapore) and Phoebe Okowa (Kenya). The General Assembly and the Security Council vote separately and at the same time by secret ballot, and a candidate must win an absolute majority in both. The two bodies agreed on four names at once but split on the fifth: the Security Council backed Marcelo Vazquez-Bermudez of Ecuador while the Assembly backed Okowa, forcing further rounds. Vazquez-Bermudez then withdrew and Okowa won support in both chambers. Akande, a professor of public international law at Oxford, is the first British judge on the Court in almost a decade; the United Kingdom government welcomed the result. The Court settles legal disputes between States and gives advisory opinions on questions put to it.