Jamaican confirmed as new president of the Caribbean Court of Justice

The Regional Judicial Legal Services Commission (RJLSC) has recommended to Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders that Justice Winston Anderson, a Jamaican-born jurist, be appointed as the new president of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

In accepting the recommendation, CARICOM leaders are marking Justice Anderson as the fourth president of the Caribbean Court of Justice, replacing St. Vincent’s jurist, Justice Adrian Saunders, who will retire later this year.

Barbados’ Prime Minister and CARICOM Chairperson, Mia Mottley, welcomed the new president and said, “We congratulate him on the agreement of heads of CARICOM to his appointment to the highest position of the Regional Treaty Interpretation Body.”

Anderson, who is 65, is a graduate and former lecturer of the University of the West Indies (UWI) and Cambridge University, where he received a doctorate in philosophy in 1988, majoring in international and environmental law.

In addition, Anderson 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 1988.  While on fellowship leave from the University of the West Indies, he was appointed senior lecturer at the University of Western Australia and, in 1999, became a UWI senior lecturer in law.

Justice Anderson was appointed General Counsel of the Caribbean Community on secondment from UWI from 2003 – 2006, and in 2006, UWI Professor of Law.

Anderson returned to the Faculty of Law in 2006 and was called to the Bar of Jamaica. In 2007, he was appointed executive director of the Caribbean Law Institute Centre, a position he held until 2010.

On June 15, 2010, Anderson was sworn in as a Caribbean Court of Justice judge.

He is the author of many publications, including “The Law of the Sea in the Caribbean,” “Caribbean Private International Law,” and “The Law of Caribbean Marine Pollution.”

Mottley told reporters at the end of the three-day CARICOM summit that the leaders “also agreed to commission the work for the creation of a treaty to be able to have the University of the West Indies effectively repatriated and not to be the output of a royal chapter which is no longer appropriate in the modern age.

“It may seem to be something that is very out of the way and unusual for persons, but we need to be able to perfect the opportunity for our institutions to function,” Ms. Mottley added.