Dapo Akande

  • Professor of Public International Law, University of Oxford
  • Yamani Fellow, St. Peter’s College
  • Member of the International Law Commission of the United Nations for the quinquennium 2023- 2027

Dapo Akande is the Chichele Professor of Public International Law, a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and Co-Director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC). He is a Member of the United Nations International Law Commission and a barrister at Essex Court Chambers. He has held visiting professorships in Australia, Europe, including the University of Vienna’s LL.M. in International Law program,  as well as the US, including at Yale Law School.

Dapo is a generalist international lawyer who has worked across many areas of the field, including the law of international organizations, the law of armed conflict, international criminal law, the law relating to cyber operations, international dispute settlement. Dapo has led several research projects. He is a convenor of the Oxford Process on International Law Protections in Cyberspace. From 2012 to 2017 he was Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Human Rights for Future Generations and from 2014 to 2019 was one of the leaders the European Research Council-funded project "The Individualisation of War: Reconfiguring the Ethics, Law and Politics of Armed Conflict". He is 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.

In addition to being founding editor of EJIL:Talk! (the widely read blog of the European Journal of International Law), he is a member of the boards of a number of journals, academic and professional organizations, and also a member of the 'International Group of Experts' convened by the NATO Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence for the development of the Tallinn Manual 2.0 The International Law of Cyber Conflict.

Dapo has advised States, international organizations and non-governmental organizations on matters of international law. He has worked with the United Nations on issues relating to international humanitarian law and human rights law; acted as consultant for the African Union on the international criminal court and on the law relating to terrorism; and also as a consultant for the Commonwealth Secretariat on the law of armed conflict and international criminal law. He has advised and assisted counsel, or provided expert opinions, 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, WTO and NAFTA Dispute Settlement Panels as well as cases in England and the United States of America.

Research focus

  • Public International Law
  • Application of International Law in National Courts
  • International Human Rights Law
  • International Law and the Use of Force
  • Law of International Organisations
  • International Dispute Settlement

Major recent publications  

Akande D and others, Oppenheim’s International Law: United Nations (Oxford University Press 2017)

Oxford Guide to International Humanitarian Law (D Akande and others eds., OUP 2020); 

Human Rights and 21st Century Challenges: Poverty, Conflict and the Environment (D Akande and others eds., OUP 2020)

Murray D, Practitioners’ Guide to Human Rights Law in Armed Conflict (D Akande and others eds., OUP 2016)

AKANDE D, Welsh J and Rodin D (eds.), The Individualisation of War: Rights, Liability, and Accountability in Contemporary Armed Conflict (Oxford University Press)

AKANDE D, ‘Armed Conflicts and Investor-State Disputes’ [2023] ICSID Review: Foreign Investment Law Journal

JACKSON M, ‘The Right to Life and the Jus ad Bellum: Belligerent Equality and the Duty to Prosecute Acts of Aggression’ [2022] International and Comparative Law Quarterly

Akande D and Tzanakopoulos A, ‘Legal: use of force in self-defence to recover occupied territory’ (2022) 32(4) European Journal of International Law 1299

Akande D and Johnston K, ‘Human Rights and Resort to Force: Introduction to the Symposium’ (2021) 32(2) European Journal of International Law 575

Akande D and Johnston K, ‘Implications of the Diversity of the Rules on the Use of Force for Change in the Law’ (2021) 32(2) European Journal of International Law 679

Akande D, Akhavan P and Bjorge E, ‘Economic Sanctions, International Law, and Crimes Against Humanity: Venezuela’s ICC Referral’ (2021) 115(3) American Journal of International Law 493