Akua Kuenyehia is an eminent Ghanaian lawyer, academic, and human rights advocate whose impact on legal practice and education is evident at both the national and international levels. She was born in Akropong, Ghana, and attended the prestigious Achimota Secondary School in Accra. She attended the University of Ghana where she graduated with a Bachelor of Law degree (LLB, Second Class Upper Division) at the Faculty of Law in 1969. In 1970, she obtained a professional diploma and was subsequently admitted to the Ghana Bar in 1971. She then proceeded to Somerville College, Oxford University where she completed a Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL) in 1972. In 1972, Kuenyehia began her academic life as a lecturer at the Faculty of Law in the University of Ghana— an appointment that made her Ghana’s first woman law professor. In that same year, she began a lectureship position at the Ghana Workers College.

At the University of Ghana Faculty of Law, Kuenyehia became a senior lecturer in 1985 and an associate professor in 1996. In 1996, she became the first woman to be appointed as Dean of the Faculty of Law, a position she occupied until 2003. In 2001, she became the acting director of the Ghana School of Law. In 2013, she was inducted as the President of Mountcrest University College, a private university in Accra, Ghana. Kuenyehia has also occupied visiting academic positions in institutions outside Ghana, including Temple University, Imo State University, Northwestern University, Leiden University, and the University of Pennsylvania.

Her research is mainly focused on human rights, international law, and gender. The highlight of Kuenyehia’s legal career is her pioneering role in the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, where she served as a judge from 2003 to 2015. Not only was she one of the eighteen judges elected by the Assembly of States Parties (ASP), she was also one of three African women elected to the ICC at its initial formation. She also became the first vice president of the ICC from 2003 to 2009, playing a pivotal administrative role during the formative stages of the court.