Sir David Williams Professor of Public Law, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge

Professor Christopher Forsyth is Sir David Williams Professor of Public Law in the University of Cambridge and Honorary Professor of Law in the University of Stellenbosch. He is an Honorary Member of the Advisory Board of the Faculty of Law of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is an Academic Bencher of the Inner Temple and a barrister (practising from 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square).

He is the author with the late Sir William Wade QC of Administrative Law (OUP, 11th ed, 2014) a standard work relied on and regularly cited as authoritative by students, scholars and judges across the common law world.

He is also the author of Private International Law (Juta & Co, 5th ed, 2012), an authoritative standard textbook on the Roman‑Dutch conflict of laws for students and practitioners; it is regularly relied upon by the courts in Roman-Dutch jurisdictions across Southern Africa.

Professor Forsyth has been and is involved in working with or advising governments over constitutional developments (including judicial review) in several (mostly Commonwealth) countries. He has also been involved in training civil servants in good decision-making in several jurisdictions. (For instance, on behalf of HMG he taught “Administrative Law and the Civil Service” on three courses held at the Civil Service College to train civil servants for the reformed South Africa.)

He has given invited evidence to many Law Commissions and Select Committee in several jurisdictions. Most noteworthy was his employment by the Government of Malawi as Technical Adviser on Constitutional Reform to the Law Commission of Malawi during July and September 1998. This involved inter alia drafting the Constitutional Report of the Law Commission and the drafting two Constitutional Amendment Bills.

Professor Forsyth is also a part-time judge, sitting as a Recorder in the Crown Court and as a Deputy High Court Judge in the Administrative Court.