PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Grenada’s Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell has appointed Jamaican-born jurist Winston Anderson to act as President of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
Mitchell, an attorney, who is also the chairman of the CARICOM grouping, made the appointment under the agreement establishing the CCJ in 2001.
Under the agreement, the functions of the President of the Court “shall be performed by the Judge of the Court who is most senior according to the date of this appointment and he shall be appointed by letter under the hand of the Chairman for the time being of the Conference.”
CCJ President, Justice Adrian Saunders, will be on leave until September 16, 2024, and the CCJ in a statement said that Justice Anderson, having been appointed a judge in June 2010, is currently the most senior judge of the Court.
Justice Andersons holds several global and regional appointments including (i) founding Member of the International Advisory Council of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) (2012); (ii) Member of the Advisory Commission on Environmental Law to the Organization of American States (OAS) (2013); (iii) Member of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) Group of Experts (2014); (iv) Chairman of the Disciplinary and Ethics Committees of Cricket West Indies (CWI) (2017); (v) Member of the International Cricket Council Code of Conduct Commission (ICC) (2018); (vi) Member of the ICC Dispute Resolution Committee (ICC/DRC) (renewed on 1 January 2023) and (vi) judge on the global Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) (from 2021).
In 2022, Justice Anderson was accorded the signal honor of being appointed Presiding Judge and Chairman of the apex Court in the Seychelles, comprised of judges of other apex courts from the Commonwealth, to adjudicate the case of Eastern European Engineering Ltd v Vijay. The Judge was appointed by the Constitutional Appointments Authority and sworn into office by the President of the Republic of Seychelles.
Justice Anderson is the author of numerous refereed articles in foremost global and regional law journals. He is also the author of several leading academic texts, including The Law of the Sea in the Caribbean (BRILL Publishers) (2022); Ensuring Environmental Access Rights in the Caribbean (ECLAC, 2018); Caribbean Private International Law (Sweet & Maxwell, 2014); Principles of Caribbean Environmental Law, (ELI, 2012); and The Law of Caribbean Marine Pollution, (Kluwer, 1997).
The Judge is the driving force behind the CCJ Academy for Law and editor of the Academy’s publications, including Eminent Caribbean Jurists: Pioneering Caribbean Women Jurists: 2021 (co-editor); Legal Dimension Arising from the Covid-19 Pandemic: 2020 (editor); Eminent Caribbean Jurists: Eminent Caribbean International Law Jurists (2019) (editor).
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.
