DEAN’ S PROFILE
Dr. Haraksingh is one of the longest serving academics at the UWI. He is a graduate of the prestigious School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, a Barrister of Lincoln’ s Inn and an Attorney-at-Law since 1989. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; a visiting scholar at the University of Warwick; and a Senior Fulbright Fellow at Harvard University. At the UWI, Dr. Haraksingh has taught a variety of multidisciplinary courses including Law and Society, Law and Business History, and Ethics and Jurisprudence in the Faculty of Medical Sciences. At the Graduate level, he has taught Spatial Information Law and Policy in the Faculty of Engineering, Advanced Caribbean Integration Law in the Faculty of Law, has conducted for more than 10 years the Globalization Seminar in the Institute of International Relations and has produced several doctoral students.
Dr. Haraksingh is an experienced university administrator who has been Chairman of the Institute of African & Asian Studies, Head for several years of the Department of History, a member of the University Council and Senate, as well as Chair of a variety of University committees. He advises the University on Pensions law and is Chair of the University Standing Committee on Ordinances and Regulations.
In public life Dr. Haraksingh has been a trade union leader as President of the West Indies Group of University Teachers, a Senator in the Parliament of Trinidad and Tobago, Chairman for many years of Caroni Limited, Chairman of the Central Regional Health Authority, and Chairman of the Sugar Association of the Caribbean. Dr Haraksingh is also a member of the Cariforum and Caricom College of Negotiators and the region’ s Lead Negotiator for legal and institutional issues and for dispute settlement. He has been involved in a number of lobbying missions on behalf of the Caribbean, especially in Washington, Brussels and Geneva. Dr Haraksingh has been engaged as a consultant with several international organizations including UNCTAD, FAO, ILO, the Common Fund for Commodities, ILEAP [ International Lawyers and Economists against Poverty ], and the Commonwealth Secretariat. He is regularly consulted on trade matters, both in the Caribbean and in the wider ACP, and is one of the few regional lawyers to have appeared in dispute settlement proceedings at the WTO. In a series of successful arbitrations on behalf of West Indian cricketers Dr. Haraksingh helped to establish their right to the ownership of their own intellectual property, paving the way for a revolution in their earning capacity.
Dr. Haraksingh was for five years a Caricom Arbitrator and Conciliator under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. He has been since 2008 a Commissioner and founding Chairman of the Caricom Competition Commission, an appointment which he holds from the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission. In 2010 he was a recipient of the Vice Chancellor’ s Award for Excellence.
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