Emeritus Professor of Law, University of the West Indies

Professor A. Ralph Carnegie is a Professor Emeritus of the University of the West Indies. He is a Jamaican History graduate of the University College of the West Indies, from which the University of the West Indies developed. He studied law at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, enjoyed early success as an Oxford academic when elected to a Fellowship of Jesus College, and then moved to Cave Hill as one of the two founding Professors of Law when the Law Faculty was established in 1970.

He held his Chair for 36 years, serving intermittently as Dean of the Faculty  and some time in the administration of the Campus, including holding a Pro-Vice-Chancellorship for the academic year 2000 to 2001 during which he acted as Campus Principal. The University of the West Indies has honoured him by giving his name to the main lecture theatre in the Faculty of Law building at its Cave Hill Campus.

He served also for more than a decade as Executive Director of the Caribbean Law Institute Centre, which is a unit of the UWI Faculty of Law which is recognised as an Associate Institution of CARICOM under Article 22 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. His public service has included membership of Constitution Review Commissions in Antigua and Barbuda and Grenada and a term as a member of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission.

His published writing has included contributions to the law of contract, international law (including CARICOM law) and constitutional law in a wide range of journals including British Year Book of International Law, Law Quarterly Review, Caribbean Law Review, West Indian Law Journal and Year Book of World Affairs, and elements of that work have attracted citations, by courts in Australia and Canada, in leading textbooks such as Chitty on Contracts and O’Connell’s International Law, and by legal scholars on an international scale.

His academic presentations have been made throughout the region served by the University of the West Indies as well as outside the region, and have included lectures on two occasions in the Inter-American Juridical Commission’s annual Course on International Law in Rio de Janeiro. His current research focus is in international trade law.