Mrs Grace Wakio Kakai is a national of the Republic of Kenya. She holds a Bachelor of Laws Degree from the University of Nairobi, Kenya (1999), a Post-Graduate Diploma in Law from the Kenya School of Law (2000) and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Public Relations from Kenyatta University, Kenya (2002). She also holds a Master of Laws in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa from the University of Pretoria, South Africa (2006). She is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, and a Chevening Fellow.
Mrs Kakai has over 20 years’ experience as a human rights lawyer and public international law specialist working with non-governmental and international organisations and international courts.
Prior to working with the African Court, Mrs Kakai worked as an Expert on the Economic, Social and Cultural Council of the African Union in the African Union Commission’s Citizens and Diaspora Directorate. She also worked as a Legal Expert in the Interim Registry of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights pending the operationalisation of the Registry. This was for the period January 2007 to October 2008.
Between 2001 and 2005, Mrs Kakai worked on research and advocacy programmes on human rights, rule of law and access to justice with various civil society organisations in Kenya, including the Centre for Governance and Development, the Kenyan Section of the International Commission of Jurists and the International Foundation for Election Systems-Kenya Programme. During this period, she also worked with the Secretariat of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Branch Office in Nairobi.
Mrs Kakai has a number of publications to her credit, including ‘’The African Union’s Economic, Social and Cultural Council: An evaluation of its mandate in facilitating civil society participation in the African Union’’ (March 2012), ‘‘The role of continental and regional courts in peacebuilding through the judicial resolution of election-related disputes’’ published in the African Human Rights Yearbook Volume 4 (2020) and a book review on ‘‘The performance of Africa’s International Courts using litigation for political, legal and social change’’ published in AfronomicsLaw in March 2021.
