Five New Judges Elected to World Court; Israel's UN Envoy Warns of Bias

The United Nations General Assembly and Security Council elected five new judges to the International Court of Justice this week, a move that drew alarm from Israel's envoy to the UN, who argued that some of the judges' past positions and statements reflect the world body's "institutional bias against Israel."

Ambassador Danny Danon noted that one of the judges had accused Israel of "ethnic cleansing" in the weeks following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre, while another had served as an adviser in a legal case against Israel.

The five judges chosen on Tuesday to sit on the UN court in The Hague are Dapo Akande of the United Kingdom, Francois Alabrune of France, Mahmoud Daifallah Hmoud of Jordan, Rena Lee of Singapore, and Phoebe Okowa of Kenya.

The ICJ is made up of 15 judges who each serve nine-year terms, with five elected every three years. The newly elected judges will begin their terms in 2027 and serve until 2036. Two of them, Hmoud and Okowa, are already on the bench, having been appointed in 2025 to fill seats left vacant when their predecessors stepped down. They will now serve full terms.

Responding to the vote on Wednesday, Danon wrote on X that "electing judges who have previously taken positions against Israel raises serious doubts about the Court's impartiality." He said one of the new judges had "absurdly accused Israel of war crimes just one month" after the October 7 massacre, while another "served as a legal adviser in proceedings against Israel."

Danon pointed to remarks Hmoud, the Jordanian judge, made during a UN Security Council session on October 30, 2023, only weeks after the Hamas attack, in which he accused Israel of "ethnic cleansing" and "war crimes" during its early offensive against the terror group in Gaza.

Danon did not name the judge he said had acted as a legal adviser against Israel, nor did he provide evidence. Two of the five new judges, Akande and Okowa, have previously served as legal advisers in ICJ proceedings concerning Israel's policies in the West Bank.

In 2024, the ICJ issued a nonbinding ruling declaring that Israel's 56-year-long control of "the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967" was "illegal" and that Israel was obligated to end its presence there "as rapidly as possible."

The court has also been deliberating since December 2023 on a case brought by South Africa alleging that Israel's offensive against Hamas in Gaza, launched after the October 7 massacre, violated the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Israel has dismissed the genocide accusation as baseless, accused South Africa of acting as an emissary of Hamas, and said it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians, blaming Hamas for civilian deaths because its fighters operate from densely populated areas. Proceedings at the ICJ typically last for years.