Prof. Tracy Robinson | Faculty of Law

Prof.
Tracy
Robinson

Job title:

Professor (On Leave Semester 1 2023/2024)

Education:

LL.B. (Hons.) (UWI) B.C.L (Oxon) LL.M. (Yale)

Professional Affiliation:

Attorney-at-Law

Telephone:

876-927-1855

Email:

tracy.robinson@uwimona.edu.jm

Staff Profile Tabs

Overview

Tracy Robinson joined the Faculty of Law, The UWI, Mona in 2011, after a decade and a half at The UWI, Cave Hill. She received an LLB degree from The UWI, the Bachelor of Civil Law from University of Oxford and an LLM from Yale Law School. She was a Bok Visiting International Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School in 2016 and 2020. She visited University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law as a Distinguished Visiting Faculty in 2022. She joined the NYU Law School as Global Faculty for the Fall Semester of 2023. She has also delivered short courses as a visiting professor at University of Puerto Rico Law School in 2013 and 2016.

Research Interests:

Constitutional Law

Family Law

Human Rights Law

Gender, Sexuality and the Law

Courses :

Family Law I (Husband & Wife)

Commonwealth Caribbean Human Rights Law

Constitutional Law

Follow on:

Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=m2O1jqIAAAAJ&hl=en

Profile

Prof. Robinson coordinates the Faculty of Law UWI Rights Advocacy Project, which she co-founded with Arif Bulkan and Douglas Mendes SC in 2009. She has produced several technical reports commissioned by UN Women, UNICEF and the OECS Family Law and Domestic Violence Project on issues including sex work, corporal punishment, gender equality and judging, child support and family law. She sits on the editorial board of the Common Law World Review and IusGénero América Latina, a new Latin American journal with a focus on gender, sexuality and the law. Between 1997 and 2005, she was the editor of the Caribbean Law Bulletin, one of the two journals then published by the Faculty of Law, The UWI.

She was one of three experts appointed to the Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya established by the UN Human Rights Council in 2020 to investigate violations and abuses of human rights throughout Libya from 2016 to the completion of the Mission in 2023. In 2011, Robinson was elected by the OAS General Assembly to serve a four-year term as a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which has the responsibility to monitor and protect human rights in the OAS’s 35 member states. During her term, she served as its Rapporteur for the Rights of Women and its first Rapporteur for the Rights of LGBTI persons. She was the President of the Commission in 2014.

Between 2016 and 2019, she was also a commissioner on the PAHO/WHO initiated ‘Independent Review of Equity and Health Inequalities in the Americas’, led by Sir Michael Marmot. She is currently a commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Gender-Based Violence and Maltreatment of Young People established in 2020. Robinson also served on the Committee on Judicial Appointments, chaired by Justice Desiree Bernard established by the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago in 201. Between 2003 and 2011, she was a member of the Barbados Family Law Council.

She received the 2019 Prominent Women in International Law Award from the American Society of International Law (ASIL), which honours persons who have advanced women, gender, and women’s rights in international law. She is one of the honourees on the Gender Justice Legacy Wall, launched in 2017 at the UN, which honours and celebrates persons who have contributed to the field of international gender justice.

Research

Prof. Robinson’s interdisciplinary scholarship spans Anglo-Caribbean constitutional law and family law and looks closely at the legal regulation of sex, gender, sexualities and family in the Anglo-Caribbean.

Her scholarship on constitutional law and constitutionalism in the Anglo Caribbean has been published in Oxford Journal of Legal Studies and Modern Law Review, two prestigious general law journals focussed on common law countries. Her article in the former, ‘Gender, Nation and the Common Law Constitution’ ((2008) 28 OJLS 735) added a feminist and postcolonial lens to the Global North centred literature on common law constitutionalism. The latter, co-authored with Arif Bulkan, ‘Constitutional Comparisons by a Supranational Court in Flux’ ((2017) 80 MLR 123) tackled the decades old question of the interpretation of opening sections of Caribbean constitutional bills of rights. One review article described this article as focussing ‘welcome and deserved attention on a court and a region that are underrepresented in the comparative literature’ (Delaney, JOTWELL 2017). Another review said it made ‘a convincing case that the past and present of the … Privy Council is of great concern for the future constitutional orders of the Caribbean, Commonwealth and United Kingdom’ (Kirkby 2017).

Eight of her sole and jointly authored publications have been cited in over 50 judgments of superior and appellate courts serving eleven Caribbean states and territories: the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago. Both apex courts serving the Anglo Caribbean, the CCJ and Privy Council, have cited her co-authored scholarship in their analysis of foundational constitutional law questions, including the controversy about interpretation of the opening sections of the bills of rights of Caribbean constitutions (Nervais (CCJ 2018), citing ‘Constitutional Comparisons’), and the applicable proportionality test for assessing laws limiting rights (Suraj JCPC 2022, citing Fundamentals of Caribbean Constitutional Law).

In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, her co-authored text, Fundamentals of Caribbean Constitutional Law has been cited in cases challenging the constitutionality of pandemic measures limiting freedom of association and movement in Trinidad and Tobago (Suraj v AG [2022] UKPC 26), and mandatory vaccination policies for public officers in St. Vincent and the Grenadines (In the Matter of Covid-19 regulations HC SVG 2023) and private sector workers in Jamaica (Parkins v Cari-Med Group Ltd [2021] JMSC Civ 183), and litigation challenging the suspension of local government elections in Trinidad and Tobago during the pandemic (Maharaj v Cabinet of T&T TT 2023 CA 8).

Robinson’s scholarship on the legal regulation of gender, sexuality and families has been published in Dubois Review, a journal devoted to research and criticism on race in the social sciences, and is widely cited across many disciplines, including feminist and gender studies, queer and sexuality studies, legal anthropology, literary criticism, race and ethnicity studies, and citizenship studies. Her scholarship in this area has also been republished in the US Casebook, Mary Jo Frug’s Women and the Law (2008) and Kamugisha’s, Caribbean Political Thought: Theories of the Post-Colonial States (2013).

Publications

Books:

T. Robinson, A. Bulkan, A. Saunders, Fundamentals of Caribbean Constitutional Law 2ed. (London: Sweet and Maxwell 2021).

T. Robinson, A. Bulkan, A.Saunders, Fundamentals of Caribbean Constitutional Law (Sweet and Maxwell 2015).

D. Berry, T. Robinson (eds), Transitions in Caribbean Law: Lawmaking Constitutionalism and the Confluence of National and International Law (Ian Randle 2013).

Chapters in Books:

T. Robinson, ‘Foreign Judging and Securing Judicial Independence in the Anglophone Caribbean’ in Anna Dziedzic and Simon Young (eds), Handbook on Foreign Judges (Cambridge University Press 2023) 324-343.

T. Robinson, ‘New-old Law in the Postcolony: Regulating Sex in the Anglophone Caribbean’, in Nancy Hirschmann, Deborah Thomas (eds), Citizenship on the Edge: Sex/Race/Gender (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021) 68-96 (28 pages).

G Elliott-Williams, T Robinson, K Adair Morgan, J Foreman, D Jackson-Miller, T Myrie, ‘Jamaica: Legal Response to Covid-19’, in Jeff King and Octávio LM Ferraz et al (eds), The Oxford Compendium of National Legal Responses to Covid-19 (OUP 2021). doi: 10.1093/law-occ19/e26.013.26 (28 pages).

T. Robinson, ‘A Trace of Law: State Building and the Criminalization of Buggery in Jamaica’ in Dagmar Herzog, Chelsea Schields (eds), The Routledge Companion to Sexuality and Colonialism (New York: Routledge, 2021) 305-315 (11 pages).

T. Robinson, “Our Inherent Constitution” in Berry, Robinson (eds), Transitions in Caribbean Law: Lawmaking Constitutionalism and the Confluence of National and International Law (Ian Randle 2013).

D. Berry, T. Robinson, “Transitions in Caribbean Law: An Introduction” in Berry, Robinson (eds), Transitions in Caribbean Law: Lawmaking Constitutionalism and the Confluence of National and International Law (Ian Randle 2013).

T. Robinson, “Our Imagined Lives” in Faith Smith (ed), Sex and the Citizen: Interrogating the Caribbean (University Press of Virginia 2011) 201-213.

R. Clarke, T. Robinson, J. Sealy-Burke, “Gender analysis of child support in the Caribbean: legal, socio-economic and cultural issues for consideration” in M. Shivdas, S. Coleman (eds), Without Prejudice: CEDAW and the determination of women’s rights in a legal and cultural context (Commonwealth Secretariat, London 2010) 95-105.

Articles:

Eric Friedman, Lawrence Gostin, Mattew Kavanagh, Mirta Roses Reiago, Michael Marmot, Anna Coates, Agnes Binagwao, Joia Mukherjee, Mushtaque Chowdhury, Tracy Robinson, Valdilea Veloso, Chenguang Wang, Miram Were, ‘Putting health equity at heart of universal coverage—the need for national programmes of action’(2019) BMJ 367:l5901.

Janielle Matthews, Tracey Robinson, ‘Modern Vagrancy in the Anglophone Caribbean’ (2019) 4(1) Caribbean Journal of Criminology 123-154.

Arif Bulkan, Tracey Robinson, ‘Equality and Social Inclusion’, in J Matthews, J Amoah (eds), Securing Equality for All in the Administration of Justice: Proceedings of the Caribbean Judicial Dialogue (Faculty of Law The UWI Mona, 2019) 15-60.

Tracy Robinson, ‘Caring Work’ (2017) Vol. 42 Journal of Eastern Caribbean Studies (Special Issue: Gender, Sexuality and Feminism in the Caribbean: Transdisciplinary Engagements) 59-79.

Tracy Robinson, Arif Bulkan, ‘Constitutional Comparisons by a Supranational Court in Flux: The Privy Council and Caribbean Bills of Rights’ (2017) 80 Modern Law Review 379-41.

Arif Bulkan, Tracy Robinson, ‘Enduring Sexed and Gendered Criminal Laws in the Anglophone Caribbean’ (2017) 11 Caribbean Review of Gender Studies 229-240.

Tracy Robinson, ‘The Irony of Equality and Non-discrimination in Anglophone Caribbean Constitutional Law’, in Maria Delores Fernos, Marilucy Gonzalez Baez, Yanira Reyes Gil, Esther Vicente, Derecho Constitucional en el Caribe: Genero, Sexualidad y Raza (Inter Mujeres Puerto Rico, Institutio de Estudios Sobre Mujeres, Genero y Derecho, Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico, 2015).

Corin Bailey, Charlene Coore-Desai, Tracy Robinson, ‘Corporal Punishment in the Caribbean: Attitudes and Practices’ (2014) Vol 63& 64 Social and Economic Studies 207-233.

Tracy Robinson, ‘The Properties of Citizens: A Caribbean Grammar of Conjugal Categories’, (2013) Vol. 10 Dubois Review: Social Science Research on Race 425 – 446.

Tracy Robinson, ‘Our Inherent Constitution’ in Berry, Robinson (eds), Transitions in Caribbean Law: Lawmaking Constitutionalism and the Confluence of National and International Law (Ian Randle 2013) 248 – 275.

David Berry, Tracy Robinson, ‘Transitions in Caribbean Law: An Introduction’ in Berry, Robinson (eds), Transitions in Caribbean Law: Lawmaking Constitutionalism and the Confluence of National and International Law (Ian Randle 2013) vii – xxvii.

Tracy Robinson, ‘The Presumption of Constitutionality’ (2012) 37 WILJ 1-24.

Tracy Robinson, ‘Our Imagined Lives’ in Faith Smith (ed), Sex and the Citizen: Interrogating the Caribbean (University Press of Virginia 2011) 201-213.

Roberta Clarke, Tracey Robinson, Jacqueline Sealy-Burke, ‘Gender Analysis of Child Support in the Caribbean: Legal, Socio-economic and Cultural Issues for Consideration’ in M. Shivdas, S. Coleman (eds), Without Prejudice: CEDAW and the Determination of Women’s Rights in a Legal and Cultural Context (Commonwealth Secretariat 2010) 95-105.

Tracy Robinson, ‘Authorised Sex: Same-Sex Sexuality and the Law in the Caribbean’ in Christine Barrow, Marjan de Bruin and Robert Carr (eds), From Risk to Vulnerability: Power, Culture and Gender in the Spread of HIV and AIDS in the Caribbean (IRP 2009) 1-22.

Tracy Robinson, ‘Gender, Nation and the Common Law Constitution’ (2008) 28(4) Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 735-762.

Tracy Robinson, ‘A Loving Freedom: A Caribbean Feminist Ethic’ (2007) 24 Small Axe 118-129.

Tracy Robinson, ‘A Caribbean Common Law’, (2007) Vol. 49 Race and Class (A special issue: Caribbean Trajectories: 200 years on (eds) A. Trotz, A Kamugisha), 118 – 124.

Tracy Robinson, ‘Law, Freedom and Politics: The Praxis of Public Citizenship’ in Barriteau, Cobley (eds) Enjoying Power: Eugenia Charles and Political Leadership in the Commonwealth Caribbean (UWI Press, 2006) 31-69.

Tracy Robinson, ‘Gender, Feminism and Constitutional Reform in the Caribbean’ in Bailey, Leo Rhynie (eds.) Gender in the 21st Century: Caribbean Perspectives, Visions and Possibilities (Ian Randle Publishers, 2004) 592 – 625.

Tracy Robinson, ‘Beyond the Bill of Rights: Sexing the Citizen’ in Eudine Barriteau (ed) Confronting Power, Theorizing Gender: Interdisciplinary Perspectives in the Caribbean(UWI Press, 2003) 231 – 261.

Tracy Robinson, ‘Family Property Regimes in the Caribbean’ (2001) Vol. 11 Caribbean Law Review 295 – 317.

Tracy Robinson, ‘New Directions in Family Law Reform in the Caribbean’ (2000) Vol. 10 Caribbean Law Review 101 –131.

Tracy Robinson, ‘Serious Offences, Gender and Criminal Justice: A Plea for Reason-in(g) Equality’ (2000) Vol. 1 Belize Law Review 23 – 35.

Tracy Robinson, ‘Naming and Describing It: The First Steps towards the development of laws relating to Sexual Harassment in the Caribbean’ (1999) Caribbean Law Bulletin 50 – 67.

Tracy Robinson, ‘Fictions of Citizenship: Bodies without Sex and the Effacement of Gender in Law’ (1999) Small Axe 1 – 27.

Tracy Robinson, ‘Changing Conceptions of Violence: The Impact of Domestic Violence Legislation in the Caribbean’ (1999) Vol. 9 Caribbean Law Review 113 – 135.

Tracy Robinson, ‘Race, Rights and Representation in a Cape Town Magistrate’s Court: Is a Colour-Blind Constitutional Discourse possible in Post-Apartheid South Africa’ (1997) Vol. 13 South African Journal on Human Rights 581 – 601.

Tracy Robinson, ‘The Application of the Common Intention Constructive Trust in Family Property Disputes: Geddes v Stoeckert’ (1997) Vol. 2 Caribbean Law Bulletin 45 - 57.

Reports:

Hayk Khemchyan, Kofi Quashigah & Tracy Robinson, ‘Legislative Reform Related to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Diverse Legal Systems: National Case Studies: Armenia, Barbados and Ghana’ (UNICEF Legislative Reform Initiative Paper Series March 2008).

Tracy Robinson, ‘Gender Equality and Judging in the OECS and wider Commonwealth Caribbean’ (Judicial Education Institute ECSC, UN Women 2011).

Tracy Robinson, ‘Law Reform related to Maintenance and Custody of and Access to Children in Barbados: A Policy Paper’ (UNIFEM 2010).

Tracy Robinson, ‘A Legal Analysis of Sex Work in the Anglophone Caribbean’ (UNIFEM 2008).

Roberta Clarke, Gaietry Pargass, Tracey Robinson, Jacqueline Sealy-Burke, ‘Child Support, Poverty and Gender Equality: Trinidad Country Report’ (UNIFEM 2008).

Roberta Clarke, Jaqueline Sealy-Burke, Tracey Robinson, ‘The Administration of Family Justice: Child Support, Shared Family Responsibilities and Gender Equality: Barbados Country Report’ (UNIFEM 2006).

Tracy Robinson, ‘Legislative Reform Initiative to Assess the Impact of the CRC in the Legal System: National Study of Barbados’ (UNICEF Legislative Reform Initiative 2004).

T. Robinson, K. Clarke and N. Walker, ‘Sexual Harassment and the Law in Barbados’ (CASH 2003).

Roberta Clarke, Tracey Robinson, Jacqueline Sealy Burke, ‘Family Law and Domestic Violence in the OECS: Considerations for Law Reform’ (OECS Family Law and Domestic Violence Judicial and Legislative Reform Project, 2003).

T. Robinson, B. Pierre, ‘Research Report on the Law of Marriage, Divorce, Spousal Maintenance, Matrimonial Property and Financial Provision on Breakdown, Unions other than Marriage in the OECS’ (OECS Family Law and Domestic Violence Judicial and Legislative Reform Project, 2001).

In the Media

In the Media:

“Conversation with Tracy Robinson”, Harvard International Law Journal Online, Women in International Law: Distinguished Voices Series created by Harvard International Law Journal in partnership with the Women in International Law Interest Group, ASIL (2022)
https://journals.law.harvard.edu/ilj/

The Gleaner, “Jamaican on fact-finding mission to Libya” April 25, 2020
https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/jamaican-on-fact-finding-mission-to-libya/

Loop Jamaica News, “UWI lecturer receives Prominent Woman in International Law Award” April 10, 2019
https://jamaica.loopnews.com/content/uwi-lecturer-receives-prominent-woman-international-law-award

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The University of the West Indies, Mona

Faculty of Law

Prof.
Tracy
Robinson

Staff Profile Tabs

Online Systems

Student Services

Registration & Fees

Online Support

Faculty of Law

Prof.TracyRobinson

Staff Profile Tabs

Prof.
Tracy
Robinson