The Honourable Mr Justice Winston Anderson
Winston Charles Anderson is of Jamaican nationality and upbringing. He was born in 1960 in Saint Ann’s Bay, Saint Ann, raised in the rural village of Brittonville, and attended Brittonville Primary School and later Ferncourt High School, from which he transferred to Saint Andrew Technical High School (STATHS) in Kingston. He entered the Faculty of Law, University of the West Indies in 1980, and graduated in 1983 with the Degree of Bachelor of Laws. From 1983 to 1984 he taught undergraduate courses, including International Law, at UWI, whilst pursuing the LLM degree there.
In 1984, he proceeded on the Commonwealth & Chevening Scholarships to Cambridge University, England and graduated in 1988 with a Doctorate in Philosophy 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, as a Barrister of the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn.
Dr. Anderson rejoined the UWI Faculty of Law as a lecturer in 1988 and was called to the Bar of Barbados in 1989. He was then awarded indefinite tenure in 1994; served as Deputy Dean, and Head of the Teaching Department of Law. From 1994-1995 he was Research Fellow at Sheffield University, England; in 1996 appointed Senior Lecturer (whilst on Fellowship Leave) at the University of Western Australia; and in 1999 became UWI Senior Lecturer in Law.
Dr. Anderson was appointed General Counsel of the Caribbean Community (on secondment from UWI) from 2003 to 2006, and in 2006, UWI Professor of Law. Professor Anderson returned to the Faculty of Law in 2006 and was called to the Bar of Jamaica, also in 2006. He was appointed Executive Director of the Caribbean Law Institute Centre, in 2007, a position he held until 2010.
On 15 June 2010, Professor Anderson was sworn in as Judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice in a ceremony at King’s House, Jamaica, presided over by Governor General Sir Patrick Allen and attended by the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Chief Justice, and other local as well as foreign dignitaries. The Hon Mr Justice Anderson has the distinction of being the first Jamaican and, at age 49, the youngest judge ever appointed to the CCJ. The Judge was also the first whose swearing-in ceremony was specifically held in his country of origin and was the first to give a substantive response to the elevation to the Bench of the CCJ.
In November 2011, Mr Justice Anderson was appointed Founding Chairman educational arm of the Court, now CCJ Academy for Law. Other major internal appointments include chairmanship of the CCJ Privileges and Immunities Committee, and the CCJ Committee on Guidelines, Administrative Decisions and Directives (GADDS), now the Policies and Procedures Approval Committee (PPAC), and membership on the Court’s Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (M&E Committee). Since 2011, Justice Anderson has been integral to the conduct of the Annual CCJ International Mooting Competition, serving as a judge and key organizer of the moot. The Judge is a regular point person for planning, coordinating, and facilitating various Court initiatives with external stakeholders.
Justice Anderson holds several global and regional appointments including: (i) founding Member of the International Advisory Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) (2012); (ii) Member of the Advisory Commission on Environmental Law to the Organisation 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 honour 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 key-note 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.
The Hon Mr. Justice Anderson is the father of three adult children: Anessa, Aleisha, and Anquan and now holds Barbadian nationality in addition to his native Jamaican nationality.