Phoebe Okowa

Fonction(s) actuelle(s)

• Professor of Public International Law at Queen Mary University of London
• Member of the United Nations International Law Commission

Domaine(s) d’expertise

• Public International Law,
• International Environmental Law,
• Use of Force and State Responsibility.

Biographie

Phoebe Okowa is Professor of Public International Law at Queen Mary University of London. In 2021, she was elected to the United Nations’ International Law Commission, becoming the first African woman to serve on the Commission since it was established in 1947. She has written extensively on general international law including the law of state responsibility, aspects of protection of the environment including protection of natural resources in conflict zones, the relationship between state responsibility and accountability for international crimes, and the application of international law by domestic courts. In addition to her purely academic work, she has undertaken extensive advisory work for governments and non-governmental organisations on questions of public international law including as counsel before the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.

Okowa was born and educated in Kenya. After completing her Legum Baccalaureus (LL.B.) with first class honors at the University of Nairobi in 1987, Okowa won a Foreign and Commonwealth Office scholarship to Wadham College, University of Oxford, where she studied for the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL). She subsequently completed a doctorate in law (DPhil.) supervised by the Chichele Professor of International Law, the late Ian Brownlie. In 2024, she was conferred a Doctor of Laws (honoris Causa) by Stockholm University. She took her first academic appointment at the University of Bristol in 1993 before moving to Queen Mary, University of London. She has twice been Global Visiting Professor at NYU Law School (2011 and 2015) and was most recently visiting Professor at the Graduate Institute for International Studies in Geneva. From 2017 to 2022, she served as a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. Professor Okowa is the joint editor of the Oxford Monographs in Public International Law (with Roger O’Keefe). She was for many years a member of the executive committee of the International Society of Public Law (ICON-S) and sits on the advisory board of numerous academic journals and learned societies.

Publications sélectionnées

• Phoebe Okowa and Jonas Ebbesson (eds.), Environmental Law and Justice in Context (Cambridge University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-521- 87968-2)
• Phoebe Okowa, State Responsibility for Transboundary Air Pollution in International Law (Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-19-826097-0)
• Phoebe Okowa, ‘Act of State and Diplomatic Protection in the Modern Constitution: Two Case Studies’, in S. Choudhry, M. Hailbronner and M. Kumm, Global Canons in an Age of Uncertainty: Debating Foundational Texts of Constitutional Democracy and Human Rights (Oxford University Press) 2024
• Phoebe Okowa, ‘Issues of Admissibility and the Law on International Responsibility’, in Malcolm D. Evans (ed.), International Law (6th edn) (Oxford University Press, 2024) pp. 468-498
• Phoebe Okowa, ‘Principle 18: Notification and Assistance in Case of Emergency’, in Jorge E. Viñuales (ed.), The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development: A Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2015) pp. 471-492
• Phoebe Okowa, ‘Transboundary Air Pollution’, in Jacqueline Peel and Lavanya Rajamani (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of International Environmental Law (Oxford University Press, 2021) pp. 475–491
• Phoebe Okowa ‘The International Court and the Legacy of the Barcelona Traction Case’, in Charles C. Jalloh and Olufemi Elias (eds.), Shielding Humanity: Essays in International Law in Honour of Judge Abdul G. Koroma (Brill, 2015) pp.104-132
• Phoebe Okowa, ‘The Security Council, the African Union and the International Criminal Court: Anatomy of a Problematic Relationship’, in Jonas Ebbesson et al. (eds.), International Law and Changing Perceptions of Security: Liber Amicorum Said Mahmoudi (Brill Nijhoff, 2014) pp. 225-243
• Phoebe Okowa and Malcolm Evans, ‘Approaches to Responsibility in International Courts’, in Malcolm D. Evans and Panos Koutrakos (eds.), The International Responsibility of the European Union: European and International Perspectives (Hart Publishing, 2013) pp. 101-137