Kenneth Keith

For the British businessman and banker, see Kenneth Keith, Baron Keith of Castleacre.

The Right Honourable
Sir Kenneth Keith
ONZ KBE KC PC
Keith in 2007
Personal details
Born (1937-11-19) 19 November 1937 (age 86)
Auckland, New Zealand
RelativesJudi Keith-Brown (daughter)
Alma materVictoria University College
Harvard University
University of Auckland
ProfessionLawyer, judge

Sir Kenneth James Keith ONZ KBE KC PC (born 19 November 1937)[1] is a New Zealand judge. He was elected to the International Court of Justice in November 2005, serving a nine-year term during the years 2006 through 2015.[2]

Keith was educated at the Auckland Grammar School and studied law at the University of Auckland, Victoria University of Wellington, and Harvard Law School. He was a faculty member of Victoria University from 1962 to 1964 and from 1966 to 1991. He served in the New Zealand Department of External Affairs during the early 1960s, and as a member of the United Nations Secretariat from 1968 to 1970. After this, he was Director of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs[3][4] and later became President of the New Zealand Law Commission. He was also a member of the Royal Commission on the Electoral System which was key in changing New Zealand's electoral system. In 1993 he was a member of the Working Party on the Reorganisation of the Income Tax Act 1976 which was instrumental in launching a fundamental reform the way New Zealand tax legislation was written.

From 1996 to 2003, Keith was a Judge of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand and was a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. He was subsequently one of the inaugural appointments to the new Supreme Court of New Zealand which replaced the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council as from 1 July 2004. Prior to his appointment to the International Court of Justice, he sat (as required) as a Judge of Appeal in Samoa (since 1982), the Cook Islands (since 1982) and Niue (since 1995), and Judge of the Supreme Court of Fiji. He has also sat as the chair of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Tribunal (UPS v Canada).

  1. ^ "The Supremes – who's who on NZ'S highest court". The New Zealand Herald. 30 March 2005. Retrieved 1 December 2012.
  2. ^ "All Members | International Court of Justice".
  3. ^ www.victoria.ac.nz Archived 29 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ The New Zealand Institute of International Affairs Archived 21 September 2012 at the Wayback Machine