Born in the UK in 1949 Sir Howard was educated in schools in what was then West Germany and England. After voluntary teaching in Ghana (VSO) he obtained his LLB (London) and attended the Inns Of Court School of Law, being called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1977.
He practised criminal, civil and family law until 1986, dividing his criminal law practice between prosecuting and defending, when he took up a post as Resident Magistrate and subsequently Chief Magistrate of Fiji 1986-1988 and then Attorney General for Anguilla 1988-9 to get anti-drug legislation through the island Parliament, he was also called to the Bars of Fiji and the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court. He also served as a TAVR infantry officer.
After returning to the UK Bar he was appointed a Recorder in the UK with authority to try criminal, civil and family law cases. Moving to international criminal and humanitarian law he defended in genocide and war crimes cases at the UN Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia [The Hague] and Rwanda [Arusha, Tanzania] and dealing with mainly murder cases in the UK.
He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 2001 and spent most of the next four years prosecuting murder cases before being appointed as a UK Circuit Judge in 2004 with authority to try all classes of criminal cases. He served in Iraq in 2005-6 training newly independent Iraqi judges. He was selected as a Senior Judge of the Sovereign Base Areas of Cyprus in 2008 and a Judge of the Special Tribunal for the Lebanon and the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in 2009 in both trial and appellate roles. He was a trial judge in the landmark case of the former President of Bosnia, Dr Radovan Karadzic. He was elected by the Rome Statute Assembly of State Parties in New York as the UK Judge to the International Criminal Court in 2012 and sat as an Appeals judge of the ICC, serving for two terms as the President of the Appeals Division.
He was appointed in turn, OBE, CBE and KCMG by HM Queen Elizabeth. He is a Senior Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre of Cambridge University, Hon Professor of Law at Leicester University and Visiting Professor at Northumbria University and has been a visiting lecturer at some 25 universities in the UK, Holland, Italy, Australia, the USA, China and the Middle East. He holds an Hon LLD from Leicester University and regularly undertakes advocacy training for Grays Inn and judicial training for the International Bar Association, and other institutions, in the UK and Europe and, extensively, in the Middle East and Africa. He regularly attends and speaks at conferences and seminars related to international criminal and humanitarian law worldwide. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Association and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is on the advisory board for both Durham and Northumbria University law schools. He is a member of Justice, Transparency International, BIICL, Friends of the Earth, RUSI and the Slynn Foundation.
Sir Howard has a special interest in the development of international criminal law to encompass environmental crimes and the protection of flora and fauna.
