Somali judge in Kenya's maritime dispute case replaced by US counterpart

Judge Joan E. Donoghue of the US has been elected as the President of the International Court of Justice, replacing Somali Judge Abdulqawi Yusuf Ahmed whose term came to an end.

Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf has been a member of the Court since February 6, 2009; was elected President on February 6, 2018.

He became the Vice-President of the Court from February 6, 2015, to February 5, 2018, when he was elected as the President of the Court for a term of three years.

Donoghue was elected during the elections are held in New York in the annual autumn session of the General Assembly.

She has been a member of the Court since September 9, 2010, and was re-elected on February 6, 2015.

During the election, Kirill Gevorgian (Russia) was elected as the Vice-President. He has been a member of the Court since February 6, 2015.

Following the changes, the case Court is expected to hear the maritime case between Somalia and Kenya on March 15-19, 2021.

In May 2020, the court postponed the week beginning Monday, March 15, 2021, the oral proceedings in the case concerning Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean (Somalia v Kenya).

The case had earlier been scheduled to open on Monday, June 8, 2020.

The decision was reached after considering the views and arguments of both parties, following Kenya’s request for a postponement of the oral proceedings in the case owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.

On August 28, 2014, Somalia filed an application instituting proceeding against Kenya with regard to a dispute concerning the delimitation of maritime spaces, claimed by both governments in the Indian Ocean.

In its application, Somalia contended that the parties “disagreed about the location of the maritime boundary in the area where their maritime entitlements overlapped and that diplomatic negotiations had failed to resolve the stalemate.

Somalia requested the court to determine, on the basis of international law, the complete course of the single maritime boundary dividing all the maritime areas appertaining to Somalia and to Kenya in the Indian Ocean.

On October 7, 2015, Kenya raised certain preliminary objections to the jurisdiction of the court and the admissibility of the application.

The court had postponed the Maritime Delimitation in the Indian Ocean between Somalia and Kenya to September 2020.

The decision follows a request by Kenya to push the case initially scheduled for next month to September 2020.

It was the second time that Kenya was granted a postponement request with the hearing having been pushed from October to November.