Patrick Lipton Robinson, a Jamaican judge serving at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, assumed duties as president of that tribunal on Monday.

Judge Robinson was first elected to the tribunal in 1998 and has been re-elected twice since.

He has served as the presiding judge for Trial Chamber III since 2004 and oversaw the historic trial of the former President of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic, the first former head of state to be brought to trial for war crimes.

Distinguished career

Robinson has had a long and distinguished career in public service, in Jamaica and internationally, particularly, in the field of international law. He began his professional career working as a Crown Counsel in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. He held the post of legal adviser in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and held a number of positions in the Attorney General's Department, serving for 12 years as deputy solicitor general of Jamaica.

He was a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights from 1987 to 1995, serving as its chairman in 1991 and representing it in cases heard by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

In 1995, he was appointed a foreign member of the Truth and Justice Commission of Haiti - the commission's purpose to establish the truth about the most serious rights violations committed during the de facto military regime between 1991 and 1994.

He was a member of the United Nation's International Law Commission between 1991 and 1995 and its drafting committee on the draft code of crimes against peace and security of mankind. He helped to draft the statute for the International Criminal Court.

UN committees

For 26 years, Robinson was Jamaica's representative on the legal committee of the United Nations General Assembly to which he was accredited as an Ambassador .In that capacity, he served on a variety of United Nations bodies and committees, including its Com-mission on International Trade Law and its commission on transnational corporations of which he was chairman of its 12th session in 1986.

He was a member of UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee from 1996 to 2005 and its vice-president from 2002 - 2005.

He was a member of the Board of World Intellectual Property Organisation Worldwide Academy and was coordinator of the Academy Session for English-speaking countries of Asia in 2000.