Inside Geneva
Inside Geneva is a podcast about global politics, humanitarian issues, and international aid, hosted by journalist Imogen Foulkes. It is produced by SWI swissinfo.ch, a multilingual international public service media company from Switzerland.
Inside Geneva
Inside Geneva's Summer Profiles: A Conversation with international lawyer Dapo Akande
Inside Geneva brings you our second summer profile, with international lawyer Dapo Akande.
“I’m one of those boring people who actually always wanted to be a lawyer. I’m not sure exactly what the motivation was when I was younger, but I think I was very argumentative as a child. And everyone used to say, ‘You should be a lawyer,’” says Akande.
As a child in Nigeria, he also took a keen interest in world affairs.
“I was brought up in Nigeria and my parents had the BBC World Service on the whole time when I was growing up. So that engendered in me a big interest in world affairs. And when I saw that there was an area of law that actually dealt with international affairs, I thought, yes, that’s the bit I’m interested in.”
Once he’d qualified, he assisted on cases at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where he saw how the court peacefully resolved disputes between United Nations member states, including one between his native Nigeria and neighbouring Cameroon.
“This source of real tension, which had occasionally led to flashpoints and the use of force between those two countries, was resolved on the basis of the judgment by the ICJ. I think that’s an amazing achievement and it’s made all the more amazing by the fact that we actually don’t know much about it. If there had been a war, we’d know all about it.”
Now, Akande is a candidate to be a judge on the ICJ – at a time, he believes, when international law is more important than ever.
“It’s clearly the case that, in far too many cases, international law is disregarded. I think that’s true. There are many instances where the law is not followed and you only have to turn on the news to see that. What I do know is that international law is increasingly seen as relevant, and actions today are judged more often by reference to international law than they were in the past.”
Join host Imogen Foulkes in conversation with Dapo Akande on Inside Geneva.
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Host: Imogen Foulkes
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This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, imogen Fowlkes, and this is a production from Swissinfo, the international public media company of Switzerland. In today's programme….
Speaker 3:I think I was very argumentative as a child and everyone used to say you should be a lawyer.
Speaker 1:The International Court of Justice is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations.
Speaker 3:I always had this interest in international affairs and when I saw that there was an area of law that actually dealt with international affairs, I thought, yes, that's the bit that I'm that I'm interested in.
Speaker 1:The court's role is to settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by states.
Speaker 3:It's clearly the case that in far too many cases, international law is disregarded. I think that is true. There are many instances where the law is not followed, and you only have to turn on the news to see that. What I do know is that, actually, international law is increasingly regarded as relevant and actions are judged more nowadays by reference to international law than was the case before.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva. I'm Imogen Fowkes, and today we bring you the second in our series of summer profiles where, amid all the talk about international law, who's respecting it, who's violating it and if it's even really effective, I'm delighted to welcome someone who has devoted his career to international law and is now a candidate to be a judge on the world's top court, the International Court of Justice.
Speaker 3:I'm Dapo Akande. I am Professor of International Law at the University of Oxford. I'm also a member of the International Law Commission of the United Nations and I'm a practising barrister in London.
Speaker 2:Very, very legal, then I'm always curious. I have a few lawyers in my family. What's the motivation? What did you want to be when you were growing up? Was it always I'm going to be a lawyer, or did your dad want you to be a lawyer? What was the motivation?
Speaker 3:I'm one of these boring people that I actually always wanted to be a lawyer. I'm not sure exactly what the motivation was when I was younger, but I think I was very argumentative as a child and everyone used to say you should be a lawyer and I kind of stuck and so that's what I wanted to be.
Speaker 2:So tell me about your childhood then, because you were Nigerian and British you grew up in Nigeria.
Speaker 3:That's right. I was born and brought up in Nigeria. I grew up in a city called Ibadan, which is in the southwest of Nigeria. My family I actually am from a family of academics, so both my parents, my mother and my father were academics in different disciplines, and so I guess that was the sort of what I was exposed to as a child. I studied law in Nigeria, did my first law degree in Nigeria, and then I moved to the UK, initially just to do graduate work and I thought I'd be there for a couple of years. But 30 something years later I'm still there.
Speaker 2:Yes, this does happen, doesn't it when you move from one country or continent to another. But you're specialised in international law. Was that always the drive? You didn't want to be, you know, a criminal defence lawyer or a divorce lawyer. You wanted to work in international law.
Speaker 3:So I wouldn't say that from the first day of law school I wanted to work in international, because I probably didn't know that it existed. But from the moment when I first studied international law I knew that that was what I wanted to do, and that's for a number of reasons. First of all, because it combined this interest in law, which I was really interested in, with an interest in international affairs which I had actually right from childhood. As I said, I was brought up in Nigeria and my parents had the BBC World Service on the whole time when I was growing up this is London, the whole time when I was growing up, this is London. So that engendered in me a big interest in world affairs.
Speaker 3:I like to say that when I read the newspapers you know in those days where we still read the paper copy I would start from the back sports pages, of course. You start there, and then I would immediately go to the middle you know the foreign news, world news and only after that would I look at the front. So I always had this interest in international affairs and when I saw that there was an area of law that actually dealt with international affairs, I thought, yes, that's the bit that I'm interested in.
Speaker 2:When you said to yourself that's the bit I'm interested in. How did you view it? Did you see it as a mechanism to right terrible wrongs or as a kind of neutral international arbitration? Because people have different views about what international law is for and whether it. Frankly, nowadays people suggest it's not really there for anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you know, the interesting thing is, I think my views then are probably still my views now in terms of why I thought it was an area that I really wanted to go into do actually as a framework within which states and, by extension, people in states, could sort of live together on the basis of a framework that provides predictability, stability and justice. So it's a combination of the things that you that you said. It's sort of a way in which we can move away a bit from the chaos that might ensue if we don't have rules that might provide that predictability and stability, but also a way in which, actually, you provide rules that provide for justice. You know, that's part of what a legal framework is about. So that was part of the attraction at the time and still is.
Speaker 2:Frankly, Over the course of your career, then this has been your work. You've advised the UN, you've advised the International Committee of the Red Cross. Have you got cases that really stand out? You could tell our listeners look, this is somewhere where this body of law, of international law, really made a difference.
Speaker 3:So I can talk about some things which maybe I've been involved in, sometimes at a very peripheral level, but also maybe a little bit more more deeply. So when I moved to to the UK and I I was studying as a student, the very first job that I did after I graduated was I worked as an assistant to someone who actually then became the first woman judge at the International Court of Justice and the first woman president of the ICJ, and she she was, as it happens, actually counsel for Nigeria in a case before the International Court of Justice. It was a case between Nigeria and Cameroon.
Speaker 4:The Bakasi Peninsula sparked conflict between Nigeria and Cameroon due to rich oil reserves Over the past decade. The cry of the displaced Bakasi people is that they've been living like refugees in their own country.
Speaker 3:Which dealt with a dispute concerning the entire land boundary between Nigeria and Cameroon. It's a very long boundary, a dispute around the Bakasi Peninsula, and then a maritime dispute as well, which, for those countries, was really a big deal. You know, these are two countries that had had this dispute, had actually existed for a very long time, and she asked me to be her assistant on that case and I also worked. This is on the Nigerian side. It led to a judgment eventually by the International Court of Justice settling this boundary dispute between Nigeria and Cameroon.
Speaker 4:The International Court of Justice ruled in Cameroon's favour in 2002.
Speaker 3:Nigeria agreed to cede the territory in a phased process, avoiding war, nigeria, which had then in fact been in administration of the Bakasi Peninsula. The court found that actually that peninsula belonged to Cameroon. This had been a source of great tension between those two states but, believe it or not, actually the two countries agreed to abide by the judgment. There was UN mediation, un demarcation of the boundary, the relevant territories were transferred by one state to the other, and this source of real tension, which had occasionally actually led to flashpoints and uses of force between those two countries, was resolved on the basis of this judgment of the International Court of Justice. 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.
Speaker 3:And with hindsight we might have said, oh, if only they could have sat down you know, talk to some lawyers like yourself and resolved this peacefully and saved a lot of lives like yourself and resolved this peacefully and saved a lot of lives, exactly, exactly, and so sometimes, actually, the work is, you know, something that's not necessarily seen it's the disputes that are avoided, the disputes that are resolved, you know. So those are things which are you know, which are. It's part of what international law does. It's part of this thing of providing a framework within which states act and people can resolve their disputes on the basis of this kind of framework. Does it always work? Not always, but when it works, do we always see that it works? Not always, but actually a lot of the time it does, in fact, it does in fact work.
Speaker 2:Are you more interested in the ICJ framework, which discusses cases between countries, than, say, the International Criminal Court, which looks at individuals?
Speaker 3:So you know for myself as an international lawyer, I like to describe myself as a generalist international lawyer, which means working across different areas of international law and, as it happens, actually I've done work on the ICJ, as you say, dispute between states, but I've also done work on the International Criminal Court and other aspects of international criminal law. I've done work on issues to do with human rights. At one point I was an advisor to the African Union on a question which has now in fact come back to the ICC, about prosecutions of heads of states, at a time when African states were very exercised about this issue and I was involved in providing some advice on how those issues might be dealt with at that time.
Speaker 2:When I was starting my career, but it's something that stands out in my mind still. I met a young woman from Bosnia who was a refugee in Switzerland, very, very smart, been accepted to the best high school, academic high school here, and she wanted to be a lawyer so she could go and work at the Hague. Because of what she and particularly what she had witnessed her parents go through in Bosnia, how do you see that? Do you think that's a good motivation? I'm just thinking the ICC. Do you see the importance of people being able to see they have an avenue for justice, for accountability?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I mean I think that that's an innate desire, actually that many that human beings just have a desire for justice and I think that serves a number of purposes. Or prosecutions for international crimes serve a number of purposes. So it fulfills that desire for justice. There's some evidence that, at least in some cases, it provides some degree of deterrence maybe not enough, but at least in some cases it does. It provides a record of things that have happened and very often the victims want to have that acknowledged and they want to have that record. And I think all of these things are important. So you know I'm a strong supporter of international criminal justice.
Speaker 2:As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction no legitimacy and no authority. People have a sense now that international law is increasingly disregarded and some are saying actually it just gets in the way People need to do what they need to do. You've heard this phrase, I'm sure to defend themselves. What would you say to that?
Speaker 3:So the first point about international law being increasingly disregarded? I'm sure to defend themselves. What would you say to that? So the first point about international law being increasingly disregarded it's clearly the case that in far too many cases international law is disregarded. I think that is true. There are many instances where the law is not followed and you only have to turn on the news to see that. But it's interesting. You use the word increasingly disregarded and you know there's a point here as to whether the situation is better or worse than what it was in the past, and sometimes there's a sense that it's worse now. I don't know what the actual answer is, but what I do know is that actually, international law is increasingly regarded as relevant and actions are judged more nowadays by reference to international law than was the case before. So that in and of itself actually gives one the sense that it's increasingly disregarded, because we test things by reference to international law today far more than we did in the past. I can tell that even just from my own life. So it's interesting.
Speaker 3:We started this podcast and I said I was an international lawyer and I didn't explain what that meant In the past. If I talked to a neighbor and I said I'm an international lawyer. I'm pretty sure the next question would have been what is that? What do you do? Today? It's never asked. What is often asked is people ask me very specific and detailed questions about international law. Everyone knows about international law. Everyone has a view about how it applies to particular cases, and so I think today we have far more emphasis on whether actions are compliant with international law than we did in the past. That's a good thing, but of course, what it also means is that the cases where there are violations it's a lot more obvious and everyone knows. But you know, that doesn't take away from the fact that we have far too many violations than we should have.
Speaker 4:We start in the United States, where Donald Trump has denounced the International Criminal Court accusing it of In an unprecedented move, the Trump administration has sanctioned four judges of the International Criminal Court over what it calls baseless and politicised targeting of America and Israel.
Speaker 2:What about what we've been seeing and I mean I will have to mention the United States here that the current administration appears not to be particularly interested in laying within this particular set of rules and okay, never joined the International Criminal Court but has now sanctioned its staff and is not particularly happy with the International Court of Justice either. How would you persuade?
Speaker 3:a superpower that actually you know what, we're not a threat to you. It's worth joining. But on your question of how would you persuade a superpower that you may need international law, one of the most interesting things that I have done in the last couple of years was I was invited to brief the Security Council, the United Nations Security Council, a couple of years ago it was June 2022. A couple of years ago, it was June 2022. And the topic that the Security Council was discussing was strengthening accountability for violations of international law. That was the topic, and I was one of the briefers, together with the then President of the International Court of Justice and the UN Human Rights Commissioner all of us talking about strengthening accountability for violations of international law. This was a few months after the full-scale invasion by Russia of Ukraine, so that was really what a lot of the states were talking about.
Speaker 3:What I found most interesting actually about that meeting was that in the meeting, the Russian ambassador and this is all on the public record spent quite a bit of time actually talking about the disregard by other states the US and the UK. He picked out, in particular, their disregard for decisions of international courts. So he talked about the then-sanctioning of the ICC and the UK's disregard of the International Court of Justice opinion on Chagos. And what I found really interesting was that he wasn't talking to those states. He was talking to the other states. He was basically trying to say, look, we're not the only ones who are accused of not complying with international law.
Speaker 3:And at that moment and the reality was, the things that he was saying at that point in time were actually true in terms of those specific allegations. And so, even as a matter of foreign policy, the idea that states were at least regarded as not complying with decisions of these international courts was used in a way that enabled other states to say, well, this now gives us a reason also not to comply. So, just as a matter of self-interest, actually, the undermining of the system and the failure to comply with decisions all it does is that it actually 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. That's the point that I'm trying to make, and so sometimes, even for the strong and even sometimes for the, for the big states, it's important that they be seen to be complying, because otherwise they will find it very difficult to get the support of others when they want to say that these other states are not complying well, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 2:I mean, we see that here in in Geneva all the time, the argument about double standards and it has huge resonance, particularly within the UN Human Rights Council, I think particularly now with the conflict in the Middle East.
Speaker 1:This is Rafah tents among rubble, the site that Israel's defence minister proposed to place a so-called humanitarian city.
Speaker 4:Washington DC last night. Guess who's coming to dinner? Man wanted for war crimes. Proposes war ally for Nobel Peace Prize. It's nominating you for the peace prize. Israel is being accused of committing genocide in the UN's top court. This case is being tried in the International Court of Justice, which is the UN's top court. This case is being tried in the International Court of Justice, which is the UN's main judicial body.
Speaker 2:People are beginning to despair that any plea for respect for international law has resonance anymore.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and this is exactly the point. It's this point about double standards, right? So the idea that it is possible to pick and choose, to say, well, on some occasions we want some countries to respect international law, but on other occasions, either we're not going to respect or we're willing to condone violations of international law, those stances actually have consequences. And so, even when it is in a particular case, it might be suggested that well, it's not in our interest in this particular case to comply with those rules. The failure to comply has consequences in other cases as well. And I think this is what we're seeing in, you know, in the examples that you've given and other examples. That's what we're, that's what we're seeing. And you know, most countries will, at some point or another, want to make the argument that other states need to abide by international law, and that argument will only work if they themselves are willing to abide by it and are to make a stand for international law in cases when it's been violated.
Speaker 2:You probably know Mirjana Spoljaric, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross. I talked to her two or three weeks ago and she said this also to the UN Security Council, a point she makes when people say international law is getting in the way of things. She says you will save all sorts of things money, reconstruction money. Your peace will be more sustainable. Yes, fight your war, but stay within the rules.
Speaker 3:Well, I would absolutely support that, and that's particularly the case with regard to the law of armed conflict. You know, it seems almost paradoxical to think that wars have rules and that there is law in war. But there's not just a moral case actually for having rules in war, but there's also the case that you know, as she said, that it actually is going to make the peace more sustainable. And what we see, and you see this all across the world now it actually just also resonates with this sort of human consciousness, and I think this is the point that I make about international law being seen as much more relevant. Now. One of the things that international law actually does is it taps into that consciousness and it's now a sort of expression of it as well, and I think it's something that humanity as a whole is calling for increasingly today.
Speaker 2:And you were a candidate to be a judge on the International Court of Justice. It's a pretty big job. Obviously, you're eminently experienced for it. We know this. Why do you want this to be your next step?
Speaker 3:You know it's interesting. It goes back to what we were talking about earlier. It's actually, for me, the same motivation that I had when I decided that I wanted to be an international lawyer in the first place. It's, first of all, helping to develop and helping to sustain that framework of rules that provide for predictability, stability and justice. So one of the things that the court does is that, of course, it clarifies the rules of international law, and that's important. And then the second thing is that task of peaceful settlement of disputes. You know, that's what the court is there for. It's there for states to be able to settle their disputes peacefully, and that's hugely important and it would really be an honour to be able to contribute to that.
Speaker 2:And that brings us to the end of this edition of Inside Geneva. My thanks to international lawyer Dapo Akande for his time and that fascinating interview. Join us again in two weeks where we'll be hearing from Rachel Cummings of Save the Children direct from her posting in Gaza.
Speaker 5:We are driven by humanity to others and alleviating the suffering of children, wherever that is to alleviate that suffering and, you know, to give children hope because they are living through their worst lives. They're living through the most desperate of times and, of course, they are innocent throughout it. They are children who have the right to a childhood that episode will be out on August 5th.
Speaker 2:Don't miss it. And a reminder our profiles from last summer are all still available. Hear from Olaf Valverde about his job trying to find treatments for neglected diseases, or Antonia Mulvey about her legal work seeking justice for the most vulnerable in conflict-affected regions. You can hear those and more wherever you get your podcasts. A reminder you've been listening to Inside Geneva, a Swiss Info production. You can subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our previous episodes how the International Red Cross unites prisoners of war with their families, or why survivors of human rights violations turn to the UN in Geneva for justice. I'm Imogen folks. Thanks again for listening.
