Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders have endorsed the recommendation of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission (RJLSC) to appoint Jamaican-born jurist Justice Winston Anderson as the new president of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
The Trinidad-based CCJ, established on February 14, 2001, was created to replace the London-based Privy Council as the region’s highest judicial authority. While most CARICOM nations recognize the CCJ’s original jurisdiction, which functions as an international tribunal interpreting the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, only Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana, and St. Lucia have adopted it as their final appellate court.
Justice Anderson succeeds outgoing president Justice Adrian Saunders of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, who is set to retire later this year. He becomes the fourth president to lead the court.
In 2024, Justice Anderson served as acting president while Justice Saunders was on leave.
Barbados Prime Minister and CARICOM Chair Mia Mottley lauded Anderson’s appointment, stating, “We congratulate him on the agreement of heads to his appointment to the highest position of the Regional Treaty Interpretation Body.”
Distinguished legal career
Justice Winston Anderson, 65, is an alumnus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) and Cambridge University, where he earned a doctorate in philosophy with a focus on International and Environmental Law in 1988. That same year, he completed his legal training at the Inns of Court School of Law in London and was called to the Bar of England and Wales.
His academic career includes serving as a senior lecturer at the University of Western Australia in 1996 and as a senior lecturer in law at UWI in 1999. From 2003 to 2006, Anderson was appointed General Counsel of the Caribbean Community on secondment from UWI, later becoming a UWI Professor of Law. He returned to UWI in 2006 and was called to the Bar of Jamaica. In 2007, he was appointed executive director of the Caribbean Law Institute Centre, a role he held until 2010.
Justice Anderson was sworn in as a Judge of the CCJ on June 15, 2010. He is also a prolific legal scholar, having authored multiple publications, including The Law of the Sea in the Caribbean, Caribbean Private International Law, and The Law of Caribbean Marine Pollution.
In 2011 and 2021 Justice Anderson was invited to be the keynote speaker at the 50th and 60th Anniversaries of the Establishment of his Alma Mater, STATHS, and in 2018 he was recognized as one of the most outstanding graduates in the 70 years history of the University of the West Indies.
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