|
|
Dató Param Cumaraswamy has been a Barrister-at-law at Inner Temple, London, and an Advocate and Solicitor in Kuala Lumpur since 1967. A former President of the Malaysian Bar between 1986-1988, he was also one of the founding members of the Bar Council’s Human Rights and Legal Aid Committees. Betweeen 1986-89 he was the Chairman of Human Rights Committee of the International Bar Association. He is a life member of the Law Association of Asia and the Pacific, and served as its President from 1993-1995. Between 1990 and 2005 he served as a Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists, of which he was Vice-President between 2004 and May 2005. In 1994 he was appointed the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers by the UN Commission on Human Rights and served on that mandate until 2003. He is also a member of the Regional Working Group for the establishment of an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism.
He received the 2002 “Justice in the World Award” of the International Association of Judges and earlier, in 1999, the International Peace and Justice Award from the Irish American Unity Conference. In 2003 he was called to the Bench of the Honorable Society of the Middle Temple in London as an Honorary Bencher. In the same year he was conferred Honorary Membership to the Law Society of England and Wales; In 1987 he was conferred Honorary Membership to the Law Society of New Zealand.
On September 19, 2005 he received the 2005 Gruber Justice Prize at the Columbia University Law School, New York.
|
