Please note Sir Robert Carnwath was appointed to the Supreme Court on 17 Apr 2012. The procedure to appoint his successor is currently underway and the new Senior President of Tribunals will be announced soon.
Sir Robert Carnwath has been a Lord Justice of Appeal since September 2001, having been a judge of the High Court, Chancery Division, from 1994. At the same time he became a Privy Counsellor in July 2004, he was appointed Senior President of Tribunals, under the Government's proposals for reforming the Tribunal system.
Previously, he was in practice as a barrister in the Chambers of the Right Honourable Geoffrey Rippon QC, MP (now Landmark Chambers). His main areas of practice were Local Government, Planning and Environmental Law, and Administrative Law. Between 1980 and 1985, he was Junior Counsel to the Inland Revenue. He took silk in 1985. He served a period as Chairman of the Administrative Law Bar Association. Between 1988 and 1994 he was Attorney–General to HRH Prince of Wales (following which he was made Companion of the Victorian Order). He was Chairman of the Law Commission for England and Wales from February 1999 until July 2002.
He has written extensively on administrative and environmental law. In 1989 he was the author of a report for the Department of the Environment on the Enforcement of Planning Control, the main recommendations of which were enacted in the Planning and Compensation Act 1991. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Environmental Law.
Internationally, in 2004 he was a founding member, and first Secretary–General, of the European Union Forum of Judges for the Environment (EUFJE). He has been joint–chairman of the judicial advisory committee for the UNEP handbook on environmental law; and a member of the UNECE taskforce on the Aarhus Convention.
Outside the law, his main interests are in music. He is a member of the Bach Choir, and a keen amateur viola player.
