Professor Dapo Akande nominated for UN Law Commission
Exeter Fellow Professor Dapo Akande (Professor of Public International Law) has been nominated by the UK for the International Law Commission (ILC) 2023-27.
The ILC is a body of 34 experts who help develop and codify international law. They are elected by the United Nations every five years.
Dominac Raab, the UK’s Foreign Secretary, commented that ‘Professor Akande is perfectly positioned to strengthen this contribution yet further. Not only is Professor Akande one of the finest legal scholars in the UK, he is also a world-renowned expert in public international law, as both an academic and independent practitioner’.
Professor Akande is Professor of Public International Law at the Blavatnik School of Government, a Fellow of Exeter College and Co-Director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC). Before moving to the Blavatnik School, he was Professor of Public International Law at Oxford Law Faculty and was, from 2012 to 2017, Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Human Rights for Future Generations.
He has held visiting professorships at Yale Law School, the University of Miami School of Law and the Catolica Global Law School, Lisbon. He has also held positions at the universities of Nottingham, Durham and Melbourne. His work has been published in leading international law journals, and he has edited several books, as well as founding and editing EJIL:Talk! the widely read scholarly blog of the European Journal of International Law.
Professor Akande comes to this position with an extensive career background in working with the UK government, having acted as consultant in cases in national courts, including the UK Supreme Court, and as legal adviser to the UK Parliament’s enquiry into the ways in which the UK works with partners on the use of drones. He has also worked as a consultant on international law issues to United Nations bodies, the African Union Commission, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).