By Stuart Bogere

KIU, Main Campus - The Kampala International University community Congratulates Justice Julia Sebutinde on being re-elected for a nine-year term at the International Court of Justice. 

In the ICJ judges’ election in 2011, Sebutinde was one of eight candidates for five vacant judicial seats on the International Court of Justice, having been nominated by the national groups of Croatia, Denmark, and Uganda in the Permanent Court of Arbitration. 

She has been a judge in the court since March 2012 and is the first African woman to sit on the ICJ. Before being elected to the ICJ, Sebutinde was a judge of the Special Court for Sierra Leone since 2007.

She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1977 and obtained the Diploma in Legal Practice from the Law Development Center in Kampala in 1978. In 1990, she enrolled at the University of Edinburgh for her Master of Laws, graduating in 1991. In 2009, in recognition of her body of work and contribution to international justice, she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by the University of Edinburgh.

Julia first worked in the Ministry of Justice in the Government of Uganda from 1978 until 1990. After graduating from the University of Edinburgh in 1991, she worked in the Ministry of the Commonwealth in the United Kingdom. 

She later joined the Ministry of Justice in the Republic of Namibia, which had just attained Independence at that time. In 1996, she was appointed Judge of the High Court of Uganda. She rose to fame in 2002 when she chaired the commission of inquiry into corruption in Uganda Revenue Authority.  

In 2005 she was appointed, with seconding from the Uganda government to the Special Court on Sierra Leone, established by the United Nations. She was later appointed the Presiding Judge in Courtroom II, at that time responsible for hearing the case against former Liberian strongman, Charles Taylor.

Back home Julia is also the current chancellor of one higher institution of learning and as a senior lawyer of Government of the Republic of Uganda Uganda Revenue Authority (URA).