Julia Sebutinde was born in the Kiwafu Village, Entebbe, Uganda. She attended Lake Victoria Primary School in Entebbe, Uganda, throughout the 1960s. After finishing primary school, she attended Gayaza High School, then pursued a degree at Makerere University, where she received a Bachelor of Laws Degree in 1977. Shortly after obtaining her undergraduate degree, she gained a post-Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice from the Law Development Centre in Uganda. Sebutinde traveled to Scotland to obtain her Master of Laws Degree with Distinction from the University of Edinburgh in 1990. The university also awarded her with a Doctorate of Laws for her outstanding work in legal and judicial service in 2009.

After graduating from Edinburgh in 1991, Sebutinde worked in the UK for the Ministry of Commonwealth, then joined the Ministry of Justice in the Republic of Namibia. She worked on several individual committees where she drafted multiple treaties. These treaties established the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development. In 1996, Sebutinde was appointed as one of the judges of the High Court of Uganda.

Judge Sebutinde served as a judge on the Special Court of Sierra Leone between the years 2005 and 2011. In 2012, Sebutinde became the first African woman to be appointed to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), also known as the world court. Sebutinde has stood up against violence and acts of terror, whether it was against Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia, or fighting for the courts to give reparations to the victims of violence in Sierra Leone. In 2001 Julia Sebutinde was given a Special Award by the Ugandan Law Society in recognition of her work towards justice in Uganda. She also received the “Good Samaritan Award” at the Congress of Advocates International in 2004. She was a member of the National Association of Women Judges of Uganda from 1996-2011 and the International Association of Women Judges. She also became a chairperson on the Board of Directors of the Acid Survivors Foundation in Uganda.