Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders have accepted a recommendation to appoint Jamaican jurist, Justice Winston Anderson, as the new president of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
Justice Anderson becomes the fourth president of the CCJ, replacing the St. Vincent and the Grenadines jurist, Justice Adrian Saunders, who is set to retire later this year.
The CCJ was established on February 14, 2001, to replace the London-based Privy Council as the region’s highest court. While most regional countries are members of its Original Jurisdiction, only Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, and St. Lucia are members of its Appellate Jurisdiction.
Under its Original Jurisdiction, the Trinidad-based court serves as an international tribunal interpreting the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, which governs the regional integration movement.
“I want to also say that we took a decision to accept the recommendation of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission for the new president of the Caribbean Court of Justice to be appointed, and that is Justice Winston Anderson. We congratulate him on the agreement of heads to his appointment to the highest position of the Regional Treaty Interpretation Body,” said Barbados Prime Minister and CARICOM chair, Mia Mottley.
Justice Anderson, 65, was sworn in as a judge of the CCJ on June 15, 2010.
He is a graduate and former lecturer at The University of the West Indies (UWI) as well as Cambridge University, where he received a Doctorate in Philosophy in 1988, majoring in International and Environmental Law.
Also in 1988, he completed a course of training at the Inns of Court School of Law in London and was called to the Bar of England and Wales. In 1996, while on Fellowship Leave from UWI, he was appointed Senior Lecturer at the University of Western Australia. In 1999, he became a Senior Lecturer in Law at UWI.
He is the author of numerous publications, including The Law of the Sea in the Caribbean, Caribbean Private International Law, and The Law of Caribbean Marine Pollution. (CMC contributed to this report)
