Call: 1965
Lord Mance was Deputy President of the Supreme Court. He sat from 1993 to 1999 as a Commercial Judge, was appointed to the Court of Appeal in 1999, and to the House of Lords in 2005 where he spent four years as a Law Lord before becoming a Justice of the Supreme Court on its formation in 2009 and its Deputy President in 2017-2018.
Since joining Lord Mance was Deputy President of the Supreme Court. He sat from 1993 to 1999 as a Commercial Judge, was appointed to the Court of Appeal in 1999, and to the House of Lords in 2005 where he spent four years as a Law Lord before becoming a Justice of the Supreme Court on its formation in 2009 and its Deputy President in 2017-2018.
Since joining 7KBW, Lord Mance has been appointed in a wide range of arbitrations (in a majority of cases as sole arbitrator or chair, but also as a wing arbitrator) under ICC, LCIA, UNCITRAL and ICSID Rules and ad hoc in fields including insurance / reinsurance, energy, construction, international trade, joint venture and shareholder agreements and investment.
He has wide-reaching experience of international, commercial and European law, having written many judgments in all these areas as both first instance and appellate levels.
Lord Mance was until the end of 2021 Chair of the International Law Association as well as Chair of the Conduct Committee of the House of Lords. He is co-chair of the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Private International Law, and a member of the Judicial Integrity Group (responsible for the Bangalore Principles on Judicial Conduct). He also sits as an appellate judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court and was from 2020 to 2023 Chief Justice of the Astana International Financial Centre Court.
At the Bar he specialised in commercial law including insurance and reinsurance, professional negligence (particularly of accountants, auditors, brokers and lawyers), banking and international trade. He was a founder director of the Bar Mutual Indemnity Insurance Fund Ltd and chaired various Banking Appeals Tribunals. He also sat as an arbitrator.
While on the bench, he sat on the Council of Europe’s Consultative Council of European Judges, becoming its first elected chair from 2000 to 2003. In the House of Lords, he chaired a sub-committee of the European Union Select Committee, scrutinising proposals concerning European law and institutions, and contributing to the Committee’s report on the Treaty of Lisbon 2009. He also led a group working on domestic enforcement of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and a delegation reporting on the problem of impunity in relation to violence against women in the Congo.
From 2010 to 2018 he served on the seven-person panel established by article 255 TFEU to report on candidates’ suitability to serve as Judge or Advocate-General in the European Court of Justice.
Lord Mance has good German and reasonable French, having worked in both, and reads (but speaks limited) Spanish.
Specific cases can be found below, mostly in which Lord Mance wrote judgments:7KBW, Lord Mance has been appointed in a wide range of arbitrations (in a majority of cases as sole arbitrator or chair, but also as a wing arbitrator) under ICC, LCIA, UNCITRAL and ICSID Rules and ad hoc in fields including insurance/reinsurance, energy, construction, international trade, joint venture and shareholder agreements and investment.
He has wide-reaching experience of international, commercial and European law, having written many judgments in all these areas as both first instance and appellate levels.
Lord Mance was until the end of 2021 Chair of the International Law Association as well as Chair of the Conduct Committee of the House of Lords. He is co-chair of the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Private International Law, and a member of the Judicial Integrity Group (responsible for the Bangalore Principles on Judicial Conduct). He also sits as an appellate judge of the Singapore International Commercial Court and was from 2020 to 2023 Chief Justice of the Astana International Financial Centre Court.
At the Bar he specialised in commercial law including insurance and reinsurance, professional negligence (particularly of accountants, auditors, brokers and lawyers), banking and international trade. He was a founder director of the Bar Mutual Indemnity Insurance Fund Ltd and chaired various Banking Appeals Tribunals. He also sat as an arbitrator.
While on the bench, he sat on the Council of Europe’s Consultative Council of European Judges, becoming its first elected chair from 2000 to 2003. In the House of Lords, he chaired a sub-committee of the European Union Select Committee, scrutinising proposals concerning European law and institutions, and contributing to the Committee’s report on the Treaty of Lisbon 2009. He also led a group working on domestic enforcement of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, and a delegation reporting on the problem of impunity in relation to violence against women in the Congo.
From 2010 to 2018 he served on the seven-person panel established by article 255 TFEU to report on candidates’ suitability to serve as Judge or Advocate-General in the European Court of Justice.
Lord Mance has good German and reasonable French, having worked in both, and reads (but speaks limited) Spanish.
Specific cases can be found below, mostly in which Lord Mance wrote judgments:
Lord Mance has been Executive Chair of the International Law Society since 2010.
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1961 – 1964: University College, Oxford; MA Jurisprudence (first class)
Oct. 1965: Call to bar (Middle Temple)
University College, Oxford (2005)
Wolfson College, Oxford (2011)
Liverpool John Moores University;
John F Kennedy University, Buenos Aires;
American Society of Trial Lawyers (2016)
University of Oxford (LLD) (2016)
Canterbury Christ Church University;
2017 – 2018 Deputy President of the UK Supreme Court
2009 – 2017 Justice of the UK Supreme Court
2005 – 2009: House of Lords Appellate Committee
1999 – 2005: Court of Appeal of England and Wales
1993 – 1999: High Court, QBD Judge, also sitting in Commercial Court
1989 – 1993: Chair, various Banking Appeal Tribunals
1988 – 1994: Founder Director of Bar Mutual Indemnity Fund Ltd, with responsibility for reinsurance
1982 – 1993: QC; admitted ad hoc in Hong Kong and The Bahamas; also arbitrator and from 1990 recorder and then deputy High Court Judge
1966 – 1993: 7 King’s Bench Walk (commercial chambers)
1965 – 66: Common and commercial law pupillages
Jan – Sept 1965: intern in Hamburg law firm (now Freshfields).
2019 to date: Chair, Conduct Committee of the House of Lords
2018 to date: Honorary Professor Law, King’s College, London
2017-2018: One of group of senior judges advising the UK Government on the technical implications of Brexit for the UK legal system.
2010-2018: Member of the seven-person panel from across Europe, appointed by the Council of Ministers under Article 255 TFEU (2009) to consider and report on the suitability of candidates to act as judges or advocates-general of the European Court of Justice.
2011 to date: Founder member and member of Senate of the European Law Institute and member of its three-person arbitral committee.
2010 to date: Chair and now Co-Chair of Lord Chancellor’s standing Advisory Committee on Private International Law.
2009 to 2021: Chair of the Executive Council of the International Law Association, (www.ila-hq.org).
2009 to date: President of British-German Jurists’ Association.
2008 to date: Member of Judicial Integrity Group responsible for the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct
2008: Leader of six-person delegation of Europeans and Africans to report on Justice, Impunity and Sexual Violence in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (for the Swedish Foundation for Human Rights and the All Party Group on the Great Lakes Region of Africa. (http://www.appggreatlakes.org/index.php/appg-reports-mainmenu-35/116-sexual-violence-report-published).
2007-2009: Member of House of Lords European Union Select Committee and Chair of its sub-committee on European Law and Institutions.
2004-2009: Judge responsible for representing and coordinating UK judicial response to the European initiative to develop a common “contractual frame of reference” (the “CFR” project).
2003-2011: UK representative on the Board of Trustees of the European Law Academy, Trier.
2000-2012: UK representative on the Council of Europe’s (“CoE’s”) Consultative Council of European Judges (“CCJE”) (www.coe.int/CCJE). Elected and re-elected as its first chair 2000-2003.
2000-2002: President of British Insurance Law Association (BILA).
2019 Elected Membre correspondant de l’Académie des Sciences morales et politiques
2012 to 2018 – High Steward of the University of Oxford
Visitor of Wolfson College, St Cross College and Lineker College, Oxford
2000 to 2020 – Chair, Hampstead Counselling Service
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