Professor Dapo Akande of Oxford University to join Essex Court Chambers

7 November, 2019

Essex Court Chambers are pleased to announce that Professor Dapo Akande, Professor of Public International Law in the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University, has accepted an invitation to join Chambers in 2020 in order to develop his practice as adviser and advocate in public international law disputes before international and domestic courts and tribunals. Professor Akande will continue to pursue his research and teaching activities at Oxford.

David Foxton QC, head of Chambers, said that it was an honour to welcome Professor Akande to Chambers. “I am very pleased that Professor Akande will be joining Chambers. Professor Akande is widely recognised as one of the leading public international lawyers of his generation. Public international law has been an extremely important practice area in these Chambers for many years. Professor Akande’s agreement to join these Chambers is a recognition of the considerable reputation of our members practising in this area”.

Professor Akande has acted as counsel, advocate, adviser or consultant in cases before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the European Court of Human Rights, international arbitral tribunals in mixed disputes, World Trade Organization and North American Free Trade Area Dispute Settlement panels. He has also acted as consultant/adviser in cases in national courts, including the UK Supreme Court.

Professor Akande is one of the authors of Oppenheim’s International Law: The United Nations (2017, OUP), which was awarded the 2019 Certificate of Merit by the American Society of International Law. He is one of the editors of the Practitioners Guide to the Application of Human Rights Law in Armed Conflict (2016, OUP), and of Human Rights and 21st Century Challenges: Poverty, Conflict and the Environment (2020, OUP). He was a member of the International Advisory Panel for the American Law Institute’s project on the Restatement Fourth, The Foreign Relations Law of the United States (2018). He has acted as consultant, expert, or adviser on international law issues to United Nations bodies, the African Union Commission, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).