Profile

Sir Michael is a member of the UN International Law Commission. He was the principal Legal Adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office between 1999 and 2006. During 35 years as a lawyer in the FCO, he attended many international conferences, including the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea.

He spent three years at the United Kingdom Mission to the United Nations in New York, dealing chiefly with Security Council matters. He was Agent for the United Kingdom for a number of years before the European Commission and Court of Human Rights, and UK Agent in cases before the ICJ, as well as in proceedings before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and arbitral tribunals.

Sir Michael is a member of the International Law Commission of the United Nations and is a senior fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge.

Education and Career

• Cambridge University, MA LLB (First Class) (1969)
• Institute of European Studies, Brussels University (1969-70)
• Called to the Bar, Gray's Inn (1968)
• Bencher of Gray's Inn (2000)
• CMG (1995); KCMG (2004)