Inside Geneva’s summer profiles: Dapo Akande

Inside Geneva brings you our second summer profile, with international lawyer Dapo Akande. “I’m one of those boring people who actually always wanted to be a lawyer. I’m not sure exactly what the motivation was when I was younger, but I think I was very argumentative as a child. And everyone used to say, ‘You should be a lawyer,’” says Akande. As a child in Nigeria, he also took a keen interest in world affairs. “I was brought up in Nigeria and my parents had the BBC World Service on the whole time when I was growing up. So that engendered in me a big interest in world affairs. And when I saw that there was an area of law that actually dealt with international affairs, I thought, yes, that’s the bit I’m interested in.” Once he’d qualified, he assisted on cases at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where he saw how the court peacefully resolved disputes between United Nations member states, including one between his native Nigeria and neighbouring Cameroon. “This source of ...