Follow-Up: All Five ICJ Judges Elected: Kenya's Phoebe Okowa Wins the Final Seat in a Third Round of Voting
New York — The UN General Assembly and Security Council, voting simultaneously by secret ballot at UN headquarters on November 3, completed the election of five judges to the International Court of Justice after three rounds: Phoebe Okowa of Kenya won the final seat in the third round. The five judges-elect will serve nine-year terms beginning on February 6, 2027.
Nine candidates contested the five seats, which fall vacant when five judges' terms end on February 5, 2027. Four were elected in the first round: Dapo Akande of the United Kingdom, François Alabrune of France, Mahmoud Daifallah Hmoud of Jordan and Rena Lee of Singapore. No fifth candidate secured an absolute majority in both bodies in the second round; the candidates from Sierra Leone, Ecuador and South Korea then withdrew, and Okowa defeated Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza of Peru in the third round.
Hmoud and Okowa were both re-elected, having first joined the court through by-elections in May and November 2025 to fill vacancies left by resigning judges. Rena Lee was Singapore's first-ever candidate for the court since the country joined the United Nations in 1965, and her election makes her the first woman from Southeast Asia to sit on the ICJ. The court, seated at the Peace Palace in The Hague, has 15 judges and is the United Nations' principal judicial organ, deciding legal disputes between states.
Related: UN Elects Four ICJ Judges to Nine-Year Terms as Fifth Seat Goes to Further Rounds
(Source: United Nations)
Source: United Nations
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于荷兰海牙的和平宫，国际法院所在地。照片 CC BY-SA 3.0 de，作者 Thomas Wolf，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The Peace Palace in The Hague, seat of the International Court of Justice. CC BY-SA 3.0 de, by Thomas Wolf, via Wikimedia Commons.
