Joseph Samuel Archibald was born in St. Kitts & Nevis. He obtained his primary and secondary education at the Basseterre Boys’ Primary School and on scholarship at the St. Kitts & Nevis Grammar School respectively. Mr. Archibald was admitted as a Barrister-at-Law of Lincoln’s Inn, London, on 12 July 1960. He is the holder of the Inns of Court Special Certificate in Public International Law, London (1960). In 2005, he was awarded the Degree of Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) of the University of the West Indies. He was nominated by the Organisation of the Commonwealth Caribbean Bar Associations (OCCBA) and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Bar Associations to complete the unexpired term of Mr. Othniel Sylvester, who resigned from the Regional Judicial & Legal Services Commission because of ill health. He was sworn in as a member of RJLSC on 7 July 2006, by the President of the CCJ and Chairman of the RJLSC, the Right Honourable Mr. Justice Michael de la Bastide.

During his exceptional career as a Caribbean jurist, Commissioner Joseph Archibald has been a private law practitioner and trial lawyer (1968-2005) in the Eastern Caribbean from Chambers in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) with practice at all Court levels in the Caribbean up to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England. He has also been: Senior Crown Counsel; Magistrate; High Court Registrar; Director of Prosecutions; Attorney General of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla (on two occasions: 1960-4 and 1966-8); Member of Executive and Legislative Councils and Administrator’s Deputy on two occasions administering the Government of the British Virgin Islands in the absence of the UK appointed Administrator. Commissioner Archibald acted as a Judge of the Supreme Court of the West Indies Associated States (1978) assigned to Dominica; subsequent to this, he was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1980. Most recently, Commissioner Archibald has acted as a Judge of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) assigned to St. Lucia (1998) and served as a Justice of Appeal of the ECSC (2001, 2002 and 2004).

Commissioner Archibald’s accomplishments as a Caribbean legal luminary have also won him appointment or election, among others, as: Chairman of Legislative Council Committees for Constitutional Reform in the British Virgin Islands (1964-1965); Principal Legal Adviser to the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas 1978-2005; Chairman of the Detention Review Tribunal of the Commonwealth of Dominica on the emergency detention of an ex Prime Minister, the Commanding Officer and other officers and soldiers of the Dominican Defence Force (1981); President of the BVI Bar Association (1986-1994); Chairman of the Constitutional Committee of the 13th World Law Conference in Seoul, South Korea (1987); Founding President of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Bar Association (the OECS Bar), re-elected 1993 to 1996, and Chairman of its Ethics and Discipline Committee; Chairman of the newly created Disciplinary Committee of the St. Kitts & Nevis Bar Association (1993-2002); principal public advocate for the creation of a Bill of Rights in the Constitution of the British Virgin Islands (1991-1993); Chairman of the BVI Bar Committee to explore the possibility of establishing a BVI Commercial Court with High Court Jurisdiction (1996-2005); Chairman of the Civil Justice Task Force relating to the working and implementation of the new Civil Procedure Rules 2000 of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (2001-present)

Commissioner Archibald’s numerous memberships include: member of the World Methodist Council (1976-1981); member of the Constitutional and International Arbitration Committees of the Washington-based World Association of Lawyers (now known as the World Jurist Association) (1977-2005); member of the Commonwealth Lawyers’ Association (1987-2005); member of Interights, the London-based International Centre for the Legal Protection of Human Rights (1987-2005); member of a three-man panel of international lawyers appointed to evaluate the Justice System in the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States and Barbados under the US Aid/UWI Justice Improvement Project (1989); Member of the London Court of International Arbitrators, the only OECS Member of that international arbitration organization (2001-present) and Patron Member of the World Jurist Association (2003), there being only two other patrons.

Commissioner Archibald’s impressive record has garnered him many distinctions over the years, including a recommendation by the OECS Bar Council in December 1990 to the Heads of Government of the OECS that he be considered for appointment to the Office of Chief Justice of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court. His name stands inscribed on the Rule of Law Monument among 18 names of outstanding Members of the World Jurist Association and donors of the monument, located on the Austro-Hungarian Border in St Margarethen, Austria, marking the high point of the Nineteenth Biennial Conference of the World Jurist Association 7 October 1999. At the University of the West Indies, as of 1990 and 2004 respectively, the Joseph S. Archibald QC International Law Prize has been awarded for distinguished performance by a final year LL.B. student, and the J S Archibald QC Alternate Dispute Resolution Prize to a graduate student.

In 1965, the then Mr. Archibald married the former Inez Hodge of the British Virgin Islands, Speaker of the Legislative Council of the British Virgin Islands from July 2003 to the present. There are three adult daughters of the marriage.