The Rt Hon Sir Christoper Staughton
was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1957. He was appointed
Queen’s Counsel in 1970 and elected as Treasurer of the Inner Temple for
1997.
He obtained the degree of Bachelor
of Arts with first class honours in classics and law at Magdalene College
Cambridge, where he was also awarded a scholarship and the university prize for
Roman law. He is an Honorary Fellow of the College and holds the honorary
degree of Doctor of Laws at the University of Hertfordshire.
For 24 years, the Rt Hon Sir
Christopher Staughton practised as a barrister and Queen’s Counsel in the
field of commercial and maritime law. Amongst his leading cases was a dispute
in the oil and gas industry involving contract interpretation and accountancy
principles, where the amount at stake was believed to be £60 million a
year for twenty years. Other work included competition law, international sale
of goods and numerous shipping cases.
For seventeen years The Rt Hon Sir
Christopher Staughton was a judge of the British High Court, initially in the
Queen’s Bench Division, handling the entire range of commercial and common
law cases, and for the last eight years as a Lord Justice of the Court of
Appeal, whose jurisdiction covers the whole field of English Law.
During his time as a judge, he tried
a dispute at first instance between twenty-two sovereign states and the
creditors of the International Tin Council, in which his decision was upheld
both by the Court of Appeal and the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords.
He also tried a dispute concerning $300 million between a Libyan Bank and a US
bank. He acted as a judge/arbitrator when invited to do so by commercial
concerns, including a dispute between owners of 80 ships trapped in the Shatt
al Arab and their insurers.
The Rt Hon Sir Christopher Staughton
has frequently lectured at universities and legal conferences on both sides of
the Atlantic, in Australia and in the former Soviet Union, where he was
responsible for training many post-Soviet judges.
As a judge of the Court of Appeal he
was appointed a member of the Privy Council by Queen Elizabeth II, and has
twice sat as a member of its Judicial Committee, hearing appeals from the
Caribbean.
