Kenya Hires 8 lawyers in the maritime case with Somalia

A team of 8 lawyers has been hired to defend Kenya in the maritime dispute filed by Somalia.

The team is being led by Prof Sean Murphy of George Washington School of Law alongside Justice Tullion Treves, a former judge at the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea.

Justice Treves also appeared before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a similar case pitting Peru versus Chile.

Prof Phoebe Okowa, lecturer of International Law at the Queen Mary University in London is the only Kenyan. She was a part of a maritime case filed by Gambia against Myanmar. She is an alumnus of the University of Nairobi where she graduated with First Class honours.

Also in the team is Prof Makane Mbengue, a Senegalese, who teaches international law at the University of Geneva. He too has litigated before the ICJ, including representing the African Union in the advisory on the Legal Consequences on the Separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965. He will be the team coordinator.

From the same university (Geneva) is Prof Laurence Boisson De Chazournes who is also an international law expert. She holds two nationalities – Swiss and French.

Another member of the team is Christian Tams, a professor at Gasglow University. The German national will give her expertise, having appeared before the same court in different cases.

Kenya has also hieed Eran Sthoeger from Israel who also participated in Peru’s case against Chile.

Also on the list is President of Sovereign Geographic Coalter Lathrop. He will offer cartographic and legal assistance to Kenya’s team in land and maritime boundary delimitation.

The dispute between Kenya and Somalia is rooted in a disagreement over which direction the two countries’ border extends into the Indian Ocean.