Phoebe Nyawade Okowa is a Kenyan lawyer, professor and judge who works in public international law. She was born in Kericho, Kenya, and holds Kenyan nationality. Her name is now widely known in Kenya and abroad because she sits on the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.
Before that, she spent decades teaching and writing about how states are held responsible under international law. She has been a professor at Queen Mary University of London, a member of the UN International Law Commission and an adviser to several governments. This biography draws on her university and UN profiles and on Kenyan news reports, and it flags points where sources differ.
Phoebe Okowa Early Life
Phoebe Nyawade Okowa was born on 1 January 1965 in Kericho, Kenya. Several Kenyan news outlets give this exact date. Other sources, including one Kenyan newspaper profile, give only the year 1965, so readers should treat the day and month as widely reported but not confirmed in an official biography.
Kericho is a highland town in western Kenya and the centre of Kericho County, an area known for its tea estates and cool climate. Most of the county lies in what was the Rift Valley Province before Kenya’s 2010 constitution replaced the old provinces with counties. One newspaper profile describes her as coming from the former Nyanza Province, which is the home region of the Luo people. Her native language is Dholuo, according to her UN candidate profile. She is also fluent in English and Kiswahili. This suggests a family connection to Luo country in western Kenya, but no source gives her family background in detail.
Little has been published about her parents or siblings. She has spoken publicly about one childhood memory. In a talk at Stockholm University, she said she grew up around land disputes and remembered going with her father to the land registry to consult lawyers about recovering family land. She explained that this experience taught her that law can be used to oppress people but can also serve social justice. Reports also say she had to overcome social expectations about girls’ education to pursue a legal career.
Phoebe Okowa Education
Okowa studied law at the University of Nairobi and graduated in 1987 with a Bachelor of Laws degree with First Class Honours. Kenyan reports describe her as the first woman to achieve that distinction in the university’s Faculty of Law. Her results earned her a Foreign and Commonwealth Office scholarship to study at the University of Oxford.
At Oxford she attended Wadham College and completed the Bachelor of Civil Law in 1990. She then stayed on for doctoral research and received her Doctor of Philosophy in law in 1994. Her supervisor was Professor Sir Ian Brownlie, a leading scholar of public international law. She was admitted to the Kenyan Bar in 1990 and holds the title of Advocate of the High Court of Kenya.
Phoebe Okowa Career
Academic Posts at Bristol and Queen Mary
Okowa began her academic career in 1993 with a first appointment at the University of Bristol. She later moved to Queen Mary University of London, where she became Professor of Public International Law. She has also served as Director of Graduate Studies in the School of Law there.
She has taught or lectured as a visitor at law faculties in Europe and North America. Reports name the universities of Lille, Helsinki and Stockholm, as well as New York University School of Law. In the 2024 to 2025 academic year, Princeton’s University Center for Human Values named her a Fellow in Law and Normative Thinking.
Advisory Work and Appearances Before International Courts
Alongside teaching, Okowa has worked as a legal adviser and as counsel in international proceedings. Reports say she has advised Kenya, Namibia, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Gambia, as well as non governmental organisations. Her profiles describe her as counsel before international courts and tribunals.
Media reports have also linked her to Namibia’s involvement in the genocide case involving Israel. Readers who need her exact role in any case should check the court’s own records, since news summaries do not always describe it precisely.
Permanent Court of Arbitration
Okowa became a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague in 2016, according to one Kenyan report, and served until 2022. Her law school at Queen Mary announced her nomination to the court in January 2017, so the exact year of appointment differs between sources. The court helps resolve disputes between states and other parties through arbitration.
International Law Commission
Kenya nominated her for the UN International Law Commission, and she was elected in November 2021. She became the first African woman to serve on the commission since it was founded in 1947. The commission works on the codification and progressive development of international law. Reports say she chairs its drafting committee, which turns the commission’s work into draft texts.
International Court of Justice
In November 2025, the UN General Assembly and Security Council elected Okowa to the ICJ to fill the vacancy left by Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf of Somalia, who resigned. Her election made her the first Kenyan judge on the court. She was the eighth woman to serve on the 15 member bench. That first term was due to end on 5 February 2027.
On 3 November 2026, she was elected to a full nine year term. Pulse Kenya reported that she received 183 votes in the General Assembly and 13 in the Security Council. Her new term runs from 6 February 2027 to 2036. Several candidates withdrew during the voting, including Professor Charles Jalloh of Sierra Leone. Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary, Korir Sing’Oei, welcomed the result and said it showed international confidence in her.
The ICJ sits in The Hague and settles legal disputes between states. It also gives advisory opinions when authorised UN bodies and agencies ask for them.
Phoebe Okowa Areas of Expertise and Publications
Okowa’s main fields are state responsibility, international environmental law, the use of force and accountability for international crimes. State responsibility concerns when a country can be held legally accountable for harm and what follows from that finding.
Her first book, State Responsibility for Transboundary Air Pollution in International Law, was published by Oxford University Press in 2000. She also edited Environmental Law and Justice in Context with Jonas Ebbesson, which Cambridge University Press published in 2009. Her chapters and articles cover several topics:
She wrote on procedural duties in international environmental agreements in the British Yearbook of International Law in 1996. She wrote on the Gabcikovo Nagymaros case in the International and Comparative Law Quarterly in 1998, and on the Armed Activities case concerning Congo in the same journal in 2006. She contributed a chapter on emergency notification to a commentary on the Rio Declaration in 2015. She wrote on transboundary air pollution in the Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law in 2021. She has also written on natural resources in conflict zones and on how international courts approach responsibility.
This body of work explains why governments and courts have sought her views, and why her name appears in both academic and diplomatic circles.
Phoebe Okowa Personal Life
Okowa keeps her private life out of the public record. No reliable source confirms details about a spouse or children, so this article does not include any. She divides her working life between Kenya, the United Kingdom and, now, the Netherlands, where the ICJ is based.
What is public is her view of why law matters, which she has linked to her childhood experience of land disputes in her family. She is also open about her roots. Her UN profile lists Dholuo as her native language, and Kenyan media regularly describe her as a role model for girls who want careers in law. Anyone looking for more personal detail should rely on her own statements and official biographies rather than unverified online posts.
Phoebe Okowa Awards
Okowa’s honours are mostly academic and institutional. The following are the ones confirmed in the sources reviewed.
In 1987, she graduated from the University of Nairobi with First Class Honours, the first woman to do so in its Faculty of Law according to Kenyan reports. That result earned her a Foreign and Commonwealth Office scholarship to Oxford. In 2024, Stockholm University awarded her an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. In 2021, she became the first African woman elected to the International Law Commission. Her election to the ICJ in 2025 and again in 2026 are historic firsts for Kenya rather than awards, but they are among the highest recognitions a lawyer can receive. Kenyan leaders and the Law Society of Kenya publicly congratulated her on that achievement.
Conclusion
Phoebe Okowa’s path runs from Kericho and the University of Nairobi to Oxford, Queen Mary and the highest court in the United Nations system. She built her reputation through careful scholarship on state responsibility and environmental law. She then applied it in advisory work and in international bodies such as the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the International Law Commission.
Her election to the ICJ, and her return for a full term from 2027, make her one of the most prominent Kenyan legal figures of her generation. Some details of her early life, such as her exact birth date and the year she joined the Permanent Court of Arbitration, vary between sources. Her career record, however, is well documented by universities and the United Nations.
FAQs
Who is Phoebe Okowa?
Phoebe Nyawade Okowa is a Kenyan jurist and professor of public international law. She is a judge of the International Court of Justice and a former member of the UN International Law Commission.
Where was Phoebe Okowa born?
She was born in Kericho, Kenya. Some profiles also describe her origins as the former Nyanza Province, so her family roots are likely in western Kenya.
What did Phoebe Okowa study?
She earned a Bachelor of Laws with First Class Honours at the University of Nairobi in 1987. She then completed a Bachelor of Civil Law at Oxford in 1990 and a doctorate there in 1994.
Is Phoebe Okowa the first Kenyan on the ICJ?
Yes. Reports say she is the first Kenyan to serve on the court, and she was the eighth woman on the 15 member bench when she was first elected in 2025.
How long is her term at the ICJ?
She first filled a vacancy that was due to end on 5 February 2027. Her full nine year term runs from 6 February 2027 to 2036.
What are her best known publications?
She wrote State Responsibility for Transboundary Air Pollution in International Law in 2000 and edited Environmental Law and Justice in Context in 2009. She has also written many articles and chapters on international responsibility and environmental law.
Is Phoebe Okowa married?
No reliable public source gives details about her marriage or family. She keeps her private life out of public view, so this biography does not speculate.