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and International Courts

African Women

Click below to read our background paper:

African Women Judges on International Courts: Symbolic or Substantive Gains?

Florence Ndepele Mwachande Mumba

Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)

ZAMBIA

Florence Mumba was born in 1948 in Zambia. She earned her Bachelor of Laws Degree from the University of Zambia in 1972 and was called to the Bar in 1973 after completing her studies at the Law Practice Institute.

From 1973 to 1980, Florence worked as Legal Counsel for the Ministry of Justice in Zambia and the Department of Legal Aid. She made history by becoming the first woman to be appointed High Court Judge in Zambia in 1980. She served in this capacity for eight years after which she was appointed to the Office of Investigator General (Ombudsman) in 1989. She eventually became the Director of the International Ombudsman Institute Board and was elected Vice-President of the Board until 1996. A year after, she was appointed to the Supreme Court of Zambia. Judge Mumba’s international career begun with her joining the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, where she aided in the drafting of a resolution in 1992 to have rape considered a war crime. She further served as Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists from 1994 to 2003.

During this period, she participated in drafting the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the establishment of the African Court of Justice in 1995. In 1997, Mumba was elected judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and served as Vice President of the tribunal from 1999 to 2001 and in the Appeals Chamber from 2003 to 2005. Furthermore, Jude Mumba was appointed to the African Union High Panel on Darfur in 2009 and later appointed Reserve Judge of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) in the same year. Afterward, she was appointed as a full-time judge of the Supreme Court Chamber of the ECCC in 2012 where she currently continues to serve. Judge Mumba is recognized for playing an active role in introducing rape as a war crime as well as a crime against humanity in the statute of the ICTY which is linked to the first trial she presided over – The Furundžija case.

Julia Sebutinde

International Court of Justice (ICJ)

UGANDA

Julia Sebutinde was born in the Kiwafu Village, Entebbe, Uganda. She attended Lake Victoria Primary School in Entebbe, Uganda, throughout the 1960s. After finishing primary school, she attended Gayaza High School, then pursued a degree at Makerere University, where she received a Bachelor of Laws Degree in 1977. Shortly after obtaining her undergraduate degree, she gained a post-Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Law Development Centre in Uganda. Sebutinde traveled to Scotland to obtain her Master of Laws Degree with Distinction from the University of Edinburgh in 1990. The university also awarded her with a Doctorate of Laws for her outstanding work in legal and judicial service in 2009.

After graduating from Edinburgh in 1991, Sebutinde worked in the UK for the Ministry of Commonwealth, then joined the Ministry of Justice in the Republic of Namibia. She worked on several individual committees where she drafted multiple treaties. These treaties established the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development. In 1996, Sebutinde was appointed as one of the judges of the High Court of Uganda.

Judge Sebutinde served as a judge on the Special Court of Sierra Leone between the years 2005 and 2011. In 2012, Sebutinde became the first African woman to be appointed to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the world court. Sebutinde has stood up against violence and acts of terror, whether it was against Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia, or fighting for the courts to give reparations to the victims of violence in Sierra Leone. In 2001 Julia Sebutinde was given a Special Award by the Ugandan Law Society in recognition of her work towards justice in Uganda. She also received the “Good Samaritan Award” at the Congress of Advocates International in 2004. She was a member of the National Association of Women Judges of Uganda from 1996-2011 and the International Association of Women Judges. She also became a chairperson on the Board of Directors of the Acid Survivors Foundation in Uganda.

Navanethem Pillay

International Criminal Court (ICC)

SOUTH AFRICA

Navanethem Pillay is a South African jurist of Indian Tamil origin who served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. She obtained a BA from the University of Natal in 1963, and an LLB in 1964 before attending Harvard Law School for her LLM. She obtained her Masters at Harvard in 1982 and received a doctorate in law from the same institution in 1988. In 1967, Pillay became the first non-white woman to open up a law practice in the Natal Province of South Africa. She served as a lawyer for 28 years, defending anti-apartheid activists and fighting for the right of those detained on Robben Island to have access to lawyers. Pillay co-founded the women’s rights group ‘Equality Now’.

In 1995, Pillay was elected as the first non-white woman and the first attorney to serve on the High Court of South Africa, before swiftly being elected by the United Nations General Assembly to serve in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). Pillay served at the ICTR for eight years, the last four of which were spent as President of the tribunal. While at the ICTR she made groundbreaking judgments, establishing mass rape as a war crime, convicting a former politician for committing war crimes, and condemned the media for its role in instigating genocide.

Pillay was appointed as a judge of the International Criminal Court in 2003, where she served in the Appeal Chamber until 2008. Pillay was nominated as High Commissioner for Human Rights on July 24th, 2008 and the nomination was confirmed four days later. In her time as High Commissioner, she spoke up in support of gay rights being treated as human rights.

Reine Adélaïde Sophie Alapini-Gansou

International Criminal Court (ICC)

BENIN

Reine Adélaïde Sophie Alapini-Gansou is the first Beninese woman to serve on the bench of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Born in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, Alapini- Gansou started her primary education in Libreville, Gabon, before completing it in Ouidah in Benin in 1968. She continued her studies at the Catholic Cours Secondaire Sainte Jeanne d'Arc d’Abomey and finished her secondary education at the Lycée Mathieu Bouké in Parakou, where she obtained her Baccalaureate in Literature in 1978. She studied law at the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, National University of Benin.

In 1986, Alapini-Gansou was admitted to the bar in Benin and has since been involved in issues relating to human rights. Through her work at the Women’s Legal Aid Center of the WiILDAF network, Alapini-Gansou provided legal and judicial assistance to many in various courts and tribunals in Benin. She was also a lawyer for the Association of Lawyers without Borders(ASF) as part of the "Justice for All in Rwanda" project in 2001. It was also in 2001 that her career in teaching and research began at the Faculty of Law and Political Science and the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Abomey- Calavi.

From 2005 to 2017, she was a Commissioner of the African Commission on the Human and Peoples’ Rights. She served as the president of the Commission from 2009 to 2011. She served as a Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders in Africa at three different periods in 2005, 2007 to 2012 and in 2017. In 2012, she was appointed a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration of the United Nations in The Hague. A year later, Alapini-Gansou established the Fondation défenseurs d’Afrique FDDA (Foundation Defenders of Africa) with the support of the African Human Rights Defenders’ Network.

In 2015, Alapini-Gansou was registered on the International Criminal Court's list of counsel until she was elected as a judge of the court in 2017 – a position she holds to date. Since 9 March 2018, when she was sworn into office, Alapini-Gansou has been serving as a judge in the Pre-Trial and Trial Chambers.

Sanji Monageng

International Criminal Court (ICC)

BOTSWANA

Sanji Monageng is a National of Botswana, and a former judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC). She obtained her Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Botswana and began her legal career as a magistrate. She became a member of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in 2003 and was elected as Commissioner. While at the African Commission, she became Chairperson in 2007 and chaired the Follow Up Committee overseeing the implementation of the Robben Island guidelines prohibiting torture and other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Prior to joining the ICC, Monageng also served as a judge in the High Court of The Gambia and the High Court of Swaziland.
Monageng was elected judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2009, where she served in the Pre-Trial Chamber and then the Appeals Division in 2012. Monageng served at the ICC for a nine-year term that ended in 2018. While at the ICC, she served as First Vice-President of the Court from 2012 to 2015, and as President of the Appeals Division in 2014. Monageng is a member of the International Association of Women Judges, the International Commission of Jurists, and several other international organizations. She was also the founding Chief Executive Officer of the Law Society of Botswana.

Solomy Balungi Bossa

International Criminal Court (ICC)

UGANDA

Justice Solomy Balungi Bossa is a Ugandan judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Bossa was born in Kampala, Uganda, and studied Law at Makerere University, Uganda. She received her Bachelor of Laws degree with honors and attended Uganda’s Law Development Centre (LDC) to study for the bar examination. She left with a Post- Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice and was called to the bar in 1984. Bossa began her career as a lecturer at the LDC. After her father passed away in 1987, she became managing partner of his law firm while continuing to teach. As a lawyer, Bossa advocated for human rights and offered pro bono services.

Bossa joined the judiciary on the High Court bench in 1997 and was later nominated for the East African Court of Justice in Arusha, Tanzania. She was the first woman to join its bench after its inauguration in 2001, and she earned respect from her colleagues despite being the youngest of the inaugural bench of six judges. Bossa was later elected as an ad litem judge of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal (ICTR) and was sworn in during August 2003. Bossa served at the ICTR for nine and half years before returning to the Ugandan High Court in 2013 and being appointed to the Court of Appeal/Constitutional Court in the same year.

Outside of the courtroom, she served as the founding president of the East African Law Society, Vice-Chairperson of the International Bar Association Human Rights Institute, and as the first woman president of the Uganda Law Society. She was also the founding chairperson of the Kituo Cha Katiba and assisted in founding and leading the Uganda Network on Law, Ethics, and HIV/AIDS. Bossa was nominated for a position in the ICC in 2017 and took her oath of office in March 2018. She currently serves in the Appeals Chamber (AC). Outside of the courtroom, she continues to serve as a member of the African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights, the International Association of Women Judges, and as an honorary member of the International Commission of Jurists.

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