Former Justices

The Rt. Hon. The Lord Mance was Chief Justice of the AIFC Court from 1 February 2020 and until 31 October 2023. He was a Justice at the AIFC Court from 15 July 2019 and until 31 January 2020.

Lord Mance was called to the Bar of England and Wales (Middle Temple) in 1965 and was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1982. He became a Recorder in 1990 and was appointed as a High Court Judge in the High Court of England and Wales in 1993, serving in the Queen’s Bench Division. In 1993 he was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal in the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. In 2005 he was appointed a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in the House of Lords. In 2009 he and nine other Lords of Appeal became Justices of the UK Supreme Court upon that court’s inauguration. He was appointed Deputy President of the UK Supreme Court in 2017. He retired from the UK Supreme Court in 2018. Lord Mance served as the Chief Justice of the AIFC Court from 1 January 2020 to 31 October 2023.

He has many years of experience in commercial law and international trade, in public and private international law and in European law. He served as Chair of various Banking Appeals Tribunals (1992-1993), Chair of the Consultative Council of European Judges (2000-2003), President of the British Insurance Law Association (2000-2002), and trustee of the European Law Academy (2003). From 2012 to 2018 he was appointed High Steward of Oxford University, where he read Jurisprudence, holds an honorary doctorate of Civil Law and is an Honorary Fellow of University College and Wolfson College.

The Rt. Hon. Sir Robin Jacob was a Justice of the AIFC Court from 1 January 2018 until 25 April 2021.

Sir Robin was called to the Bar of England and Wales (Gray’s Inn) in 1965 and was appointed a Queen’s Counsel in 1981. He was appointed as a High Court Judge in the High Court of England and Wales in 1993, and he was a Supervising Chancery Judge. He was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal in the Court of Appeal of England and Wales in 2003 and retired from the Court of Appeal in 2011 but continued to sit in the Court of Appeal occasionally until 2016.

His has specialist expertise in intellectual property law and commercial law. He was admitted to the Intellectual Property Hall of Fame in 2006. He is currently the Hugh Laddie Professor of Intellectual Property Law and Director of the Institute of Brand and Innovation Law at University College London. He has extensive experience of mediation and arbitration.

He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge University, where he read Natural Sciences and graduated in 1963. He also read the LLB in Law at the London School of Economics and graduated in 1967, having simultaneously read for the Bar.

The Rt. Hon. The Lord Woolf CH was Chief Justice of the AIFC Court from 1 January 2018 until 31 December 2020.  He was Adviser on and Founder of the AIFC Court from 1 February 2018 until 31 December 2020.

Lord Woolf is one of the most influential judges in recent British legal history and a global figure on the common law, judicial procedures, dispute resolution, and legal education. In 1955, he was called to the Bar of England and Wales (Inner Temple). In 1979, he was appointed a judge of the High Court of England and Wales and held two of the highest judicial positions in England and Wales: Master of the Rolls and Lord Chief Justice. He was the first Lord Chief Justice to become the Chairman of the Courts of England and Wales. He served as a non-permanent judge of the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong and was the first President of the Court for Civil and Commercial Matters at the Qatar Financial Centre.

He is the patron of the Wolf Institute for Interfaith Relations at the University of Cambridge. He has held honorary fellowships at numerous academic institutions and was Chairman of the Council and Visiting Professor of Law at University College London, Chairman of the Open University of Israel, and Chairman of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. He is the author or co-author of leading legal publications, including De Smith’s Judicial Review (2016, Sweet and Maxwell) and the book The Pursuit of Justice (2008, “OUP”). He has been awarded numerous honors, including being appointed a member of the Order of Knights of Honour (KH) by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2015, and awarded the Gold Bauhinia Star by the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong SAR. He received his education at University College London, where he read for the Bachelor of Laws (LLB) in 1954 and became a fellow in 1981. He has received academic awards from 21 universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, and University College London. 

The Lord Banner KC was a Justice of the AIFC Small Claims Court from 15 July 2019 until 13 August 2025.

Justice Banner KC is a barrister based at Keating Chambers in London. He practises in England & Wales (where he was called to the Bar in 2004) and Northern Ireland (where he was called to the Bar in 2010), as well as internationally. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2019. He has a broad practice, principally focused on public and private law issues relating to development and infrastructure (particularly in the energy, transport, housing and tourism sectors), but also covering government & regulation and commercial dispute resolution more generally. He is recommended in a total of 8 practice areas by Chambers & Partners UK Bar and Legal 500 UK Bar, and has been the recipient of multiple legal industry awards.

He has acted as counsel in over 100 reported cases, including 16 appeals in the UK Supreme Court, 13 cases before the EU Courts (CJEU and General Court) and 9 cases before the UNECE Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee. He was a Judicial Assistant to the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords (the predecessor to the UK Supreme Court) for 12 months in 2005-2006. He is a non-executive member of the Global Standards and Regulation Board of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (the global professional self-regulatory body for over 125,000 chartered surveyors and 25,000 firms worldwide) and an Independent Member of the UK Joint Nature Conservation Committee (the statutory UK nature conservation advisory body). From 2017 until 2020 he was the UK Member of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency’s Management Board. He speaks intermediate French and Russian. He was educated at the University of Oxford (Lincoln College).