Inside Geneva’s Summer Profile: Dapo Akande, International Lawyer and candidate for the ICJ

Is it worth having international courts? Or do they just interfere with the sovereignty of nation states? Do they hold countries and individual leaders accountable, or do they needlessly pursue those who are just trying to do their jobs, whether in the military, or at the head of government?

Increasingly it seems, there is a tendency among some governments to view the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice as bureaucratic, even biased bodies, which serve only to get in the way of national leaders.

Some of the world’s biggest powers – the United States, Russia, China, as well as Israel and India, have never even joined the ICC, perhaps fearing from the outset that the court might shine an unwelcome light on some of their activities.

Today, Inside Geneva’s second in our summer profile series is out, and in it we try to sort out the facts from the fears, by interviewing international lawyer Dapo Akande, who has assisted on cases at the International Court of Justice, and is now a candidate to be one of its judges.

Argumentative child

Akande, who has dual Nigerian/British citizenship, was born in Nigeria, and says he wanted to be a lawyer from childhood. Why, he’s not quite sure, but remembers that “I was very argumentative as a child, and people said, ‘you should be a lawyer’’’.

He also took a keen interest in world affairs; the news was always on the radio at home, and he read a newspaper every day, “starting at the back with the sport, but then going to the middle where the international news was.”

But it wasn’t until he began studying law that he realised that there was an area of law that dealt with international affairs. “I thought, yes, that’s the bit I’m interested in.”

So even as many seem to be turning against international law, Akande was drawn to it. “I looked at it as a framework within which states and by extension people in states could live together; a framework that provides predictability, stability and justice.”

When we think about it, that is why international law came about in the first place. Much of it was adopted in the wake of the Second World War, a “never again” moment which, unfortunately, many seem today to have forgotten.

Settling disputes peacefully

The International Court of Justice, sometimes known as the World Court, was founded in 1945. Its function: to settle disputes between states, its hope: to prevent countries going to war.

Akande soon got a taste of how that worked. After qualifying as a lawyer, he assisted at a case at the ICJ which involved his native Nigeria, and neighbouring Cameroon. It was a dispute over territory, and who was entitled to a natural resource rich area called the Bakassi peninsula.

Both countries claimed it, the situation between them was becoming tense, there were skirmishes. After hearing the two countries’ claims in detail, the ICJ judges ruled in favour of Cameroon, and Nigeria accepted the ruling. Although of course the decision didn’t please everyone, the matter was settled without an all out war – something Akande sees as crucial.

“I think that’s an amazing achievement, and it’s made all the more amazing by the fact that actually we don’t know that much about it. If there’d been a war, we would know all about it.”

So what’s not to like?

Avoiding war seems like something everyone would agree is a good thing. So what’s not to like about the ICJ? In fact, its cases are not confined to territorial disputes, and even if they were, if, to invent a purely hypothetical example, Canada were to approach the ICJ to suggest that a bit of territory (Alaska maybe?) should be Canada’s rather than the United States’, I think we can all imagine Washington’s reaction.

South Africa has turned to the ICJ, as it has a right to, for a ruling on whether Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide. The convention against genocide – another key element of international law, and one the ICJ has jurisdiction over – requires states to prevent genocide, even if the alleged crime is not happening on their territory.

But while many saw the merits of South Africa’s case, Israel, pointing to its right to defend itself after October 7, was furious, and its key ally the United States has dismissed it as “meritless”.

Meanwhile, over at the International Criminal Court, things are often even more fraught. The ICC deals with individuals, not states, and has issued arrest warrants for, among others, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Hamas leader Mohammed Deif (the latter since killed in Gaza).

Powerful leaders really do not like being indicted, and here again Israel has protested fiercely. The United States, in support, has taken the astonishing step of imposing financial sanctions on ICC judges.

Independent international arbiter

Akande, now himself a candidate to be a judge on the International Court of Justice, will, very properly, not be drawn on the merits of these cases – that’s for the existing judges.

But he does note that countries which are less powerful seem to rate international law more highly than more powerful ones. They see the value of an independent international arbiter on those occasions when superpowers are flexing their muscles at others’ expense.

Akande reminds the big powers that respecting international law may even be in their own self-interest, whereas disregarding it may come back to haunt them.

“All that does is actually, it just gives an excuse for others in other cases also to not comply. In ways which might actually be adverse to the interests of even the big players.”

Akande would not be a candidate to serve on the ICJ if he did not think the system worked. Nevertheless, he knows there are challenges. “In far too many cases international law is disregarded”, he tells Inside Geneva. “There are many instances where the law is not followed and you only have to turn on the news to see that.”

But he adds, he takes heart from his sense that we are much more aware of international law than we once were. At the start of our interview, he reminds me, he explained that he was an international lawyer, but did not, as he once might have, feel the need to explain in detail what that job title actually meant.

“What I do know is that international law is increasingly regarded as relevant,” he says. “And actions are judged more nowadays by reference to international law than was the case before.”

It doesn’t always work, he admits, and when it does, we don’t always know. The absence of war, the prevention of violence, is not something we pay much attention to; we don’t notice what hasn’t happened. But the international courts are there to solve disputes peacefully, to uphold our cherished conventions against genocide, or torture, and to hold abusive leaders to account.

In the end, what’s not to like? Listen to Inside Geneva for the full, fascinating, conversation.

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