Jus­tice Chile Eboe-Os­u­ji was sworn in on Tues­day as a judge of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Jus­tice (CCJ) with the Court’s Pres­i­dent, Jus­tice Adri­an Saun­ders, say­ing “I have no doubt that (he) will make an im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of our Caribbean ju­rispru­dence”.

The new judge took the oath of of­fice be­fore Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Pres­i­dent, Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo at the Pres­i­dent’s House.

“The CCJ has been unswerv­ing it the pur­suit of its vi­sion of be­com­ing a mod­el of ju­di­cial ex­cel­lence. To­day, the CCJ has tak­en an­oth­er im­por­tant step in pur­suit of the vi­sion by adding Jus­tice Eboe- Os­u­ji to its ranks.

“Jus­tice Eboe-Os­u­ji is a bril­liant le­gal mind and a gift­ed ju­rist whose long and dis­tin­guished ca­reer has as we have heard spanned many coun­tries and in­sti­tu­tions,” Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo said.

Jus­tice Eboe-Os­u­ji, the first Niger­ian-Cana­di­an to be ap­point­ed to the Court, re­places Jus­tice An­drew Burgess, who re­tired on April 11, 2025.

He was se­lect­ed from a pool of 26 ap­pli­cants by the Re­gion­al Ju­di­cial and Le­gal Ser­vices Com­mis­sion (RJLSC), an in­de­pen­dent body of 11 in­di­vid­u­als re­spon­si­ble for ap­point­ing the judges and staff of the Court.

Jus­tice Saun­ders de­scribed the process for the re­cruit­ment as “one of, if not the most sa­cred role car­ried out by the RJLSC is the ap­point­ment of Judges of the CCJ.

“The se­lec­tion and ap­point­ment process is rig­or­ous, com­pet­i­tive, mer­it-based and en­tire­ly in­de­pen­dent of any po­lit­i­cal in­volve­ment,” he said, wel­com­ing the new judge, while in­di­cat­ing that “‘Mr Jus­tice Eboe-Os­u­ji has an im­pec­ca­ble record of ser­vice as a lawyer and ju­rist.

“ I have no doubt that (he) will make an im­por­tant con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of our Caribbean ju­rispru­dence.’

Jus­tice Eboe-Os­u­ji is an in­ter­na­tion­al ju­rist who brings ex­per­tise in crim­i­nal law and hu­man rights law to the CCJ. He prac­tised law as a bar­ris­ter be­fore tri­al courts in Nige­ria and Cana­da and con­duct­ed ap­peals be­fore the Court of Ap­peal for On­tario (Cana­da) and the Supreme Court of Cana­da.

He pre­vi­ous­ly served as a Judge and Pres­i­dent of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court and, was the Le­gal Ad­vi­sor to the Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights. He al­so led the writ­ing of am­i­cus cu­ri­ae sub­mis­sions to the Eu­ro­pean Court of Hu­man Rights and the Unit­ed States Supreme Court. His di­verse le­gal back­ground al­so in­cludes sev­er­al posts as a le­gal ad­vi­sor, pub­lished au­thor and pro­fes­sor.

He told the cer­e­mo­ny that ‘the Court serves its pur­pose not on­ly as a court for CARI­COM na­tions to re­solve dis­putes aris­ing from the Re­vised Treaty of Ch­aguara­mas but al­so there is no need to look be­yond the seas for a fi­nal court of ap­peal, giv­en the qual­i­ty of judges we have on that Bench and it is an in­cred­i­ble ho­n­our for me to have been se­lect­ed”.

Judges of the CCJ, which was es­tab­lished in 2001 to re­place the Lon­don-based Privy Coun­cil as the re­gion’s high­est and fi­nal court, are ap­point­ed to hold of­fice un­til the age of sev­en­ty-two, while the Pres­i­dent of the Court holds of­fice for a non-re­new­able term of sev­en years.