Abdul Gadire Koroma (born 29 September 1943 in

Freetown Freetown is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educ ...

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierr ...

) is a Sierra Leonean jurist who served two terms as judge at the

International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordan ...

(from 1994 to 2012). He was educated at

Kiev State University Kyiv University or Shevchenko University or officially the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv ( uk, Київський національний університет імені Тараса Шевченка), colloquially known as KNU ...

where he took LLM (Hons), and at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

, where he took an M.Phil. in International Law with a thesis entitled ''The settlement of territorial and boundary disputes in central Africa''. He also holds an honorary LLD from the

University of Sierra Leone The University of Sierra Leone is the name of the former unitary public university system in Sierra Leone. Established in February 1827, it is the oldest university in Africa. As of May 2005, the University of Sierra Leone was reconstituted in ...

, and is an Honorary Bencher of

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincol ...

. Koroma was re-elected to the ICJ at the end of his first term, and was again a candidate for re-election in the

ICJ judges election, 2011 The 2011 International Court of Justice election began on 10 November 2011 at United Nations Headquarters in New York City. In the set of triennial elections, the General Assembly and the Security Council concurrently elect five judges to the Cour ...

. On the first day of voting, four candidates were elected (including the other three incumbents who were candidates) but the fifth position was not filled. To be elected, successful candidates need an absolute majority in both the Security Council and the General Assembly. When voting adjourned, Koroma had received a majority of votes in the Security Council (9 out of 15), but was just one vote short in the General Assembly (96 out of 193 votes, compared to 97 votes for the other remaining candidate,

Julia Sebutinde Julia Sebutinde is a Ugandan judge serving her second term on the International Court of Justice following her re-election on November 12, 2020. She also is the current chancellor of Muteesa I Royal University a university owned by Buganda k ...

). On 13 December 2011, in the final round of voting, Sebutinde obtained an absolute majority of votes in both the Security Council and the General Assembly. Therefore, Koroma's tenure on the court expired on 5 February 2012. In recognition of his contributions to international law, a group of international law scholars and practitioners contributed to an essay collection in honor of Judge Koroma. The work, edited by Charles Jalloh and Olufemi Elias and published by Martinus Nijhoff Brill in July 2015, included contributions from four ICJ judges and noted African and non-African scholars of international law.

References

External links

International Court of Justice Biography

1943 births Alumni of King's College London Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv alumni International Court of Justice judges Members of the Institut de Droit International Living people People from Freetown 20th-century Sierra Leonean judges 21st-century Sierra Leonean judges Sierra Leonean judges of United Nations courts and tribunals {{Africa-law-bio-stub