Born on 13 August 1904 in Colombo, Sri Lanka

• Early career as a barrister-at-law (from 1928) and as a lecturer in law at OxfordUniversity (from 1930)
• During the Second World War served at the Admiralty and rose to the rank ofPrinciple Assistant Secretary (1944)
• In 1946 became United Kingdom Commissioner in the Italo-Yugoslav BoundaryCommission and on the Special Commission for the Free Territory of Trieste set upby the Council of Foreign Ministers
• Chichele Professor of International Law at Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls Collegesince 1947
• Was elected a member of the European Commission of Human Rights in 1954, andwas its President from 1955 to 1961
• Editor of the British Yearbook of International Law since 1955
• Member of the Institute of International Law
• Member of the following conciliation commissions: Swedish-Finnish (1957),Swedish-Swiss (1960), Swedish-Turkish and German-Swiss (1963), United States-Danish (1964), and Chilean-Italian (1965)
• Member of the International Law Commission of the United Nations since 1961(Special Rapporteur on the Law of Treaties), member of the Council of Managementof the British Institute of International and Comparative Law
• Author of books and articles on legal subjects
• Vice-President of the Court from 27 September 1968 to 5 May 1971
• President of the Court from 5 May 1971 to 21 January 1974
• Judge of the European Court of Human Rights from 5 May 1966 to 21 January 1974