The tribunal also swore in its first ever female judge from Africa.
The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) has elected two veteran <a href="https://absafricatv.com/the-north-african-people-with-a-forgotten-christian-heritage/” title=”The North African people with a forgotten Christian heritage”>African judges to its leadership in the sixty-second administrative session of its tribunal. ITLOS swore in its new appointments on 1 October.
Cameroonian Judge Maurice Kamga was elected as president of ITLOS for the 2026 to 2029 term and is set to serve alongside Argentinian vice-president Frida Maria Arma Pfirter.
Among his responsibilities as president, Kamga will preside over all ITLOS tribunal meetings, oversee its administration and direct the tribunal’s workload. Additionally, he will be based permanently at the seat of the tribunal in Hamburg and will represent ITLOS in its relations with states and entities.
His legal experience includes a tenure as secretary of the International Court of Justice in the Hague from 2008 until 2020, when he joined ITLOS as a judge.
Historic appointment
Judge SylOS judge. She was sworn into her new position on 1 October, with her term set to run from 2026 until 2035
Hailing from Ghana, she won 130 of the 169 votes at the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) meeting in June this year.
Among her prior roles, she has served as the Ghana Ministry of Justice International Law Division lead, and as chief state attorney.
The other judges sworn into ITLOS were George Rodrigo Bandeira Galindo from Brazil, Slim Laghmani from Tunisia, Lan-Anh Thi Nguyen from Viet Nam and Bimal Patel from India.
In other developments from Cameroon, international firm Dentons launched its inaugural office in the country last year.
