Her Excellency Deborah Thomas-Felix is the High Commissioner of Trinidad and Tobago to Jamaica and Ambassador to the Dominican Republic and Haiti. She is also the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago to the International Seabed Authority (ISA). She has had a distinguished career in law, international justice and public service holding a number of pioneering leadership positions at national, regional and international levels.

She is currently a Judge of the International Monetary Fund Administrative Tribunal, the first person from the Caribbean to serve in that capacity, and a member of the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations since 2015, the first national of Trinidad and Tobago to be elected to that august body. Her Excellency is a former President of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal (UNAT), where she was the first and only Caribbean jurist to hold the position. She also became the first female President of the Industrial Court of Trinidad and Tobago and served as its sixth President. She is a former Deputy Chief Magistrate and Chairman of the Trinidad and Tobago Securities and Exchange Commission. She also served as the inaugural President of the Family Court of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Her contributions extend to regional and international platforms. She is a past President of the Caribbean Group of Securities Regulators and has served as Co-Chair of the first High-Level Seminar on International Administrative Tribunals hosted by the European Public Law Organization in Greece. In 2024, she delivered the Keynote Address to the Committee on the Application of Standards at the 112th Session of the International Labour Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. Her Excellency was also a Speaker at the Special Meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization of America States (OAS) to commemorate World Day of Social Justice 2023 in Washington, D.C. and she was the Feature Speaker for the opening of the new law term at the Legal Year Celebrations of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria in 2022. She was a Feature Speaker and Moderator at the 11th International Labour Organization’s Meeting of Caribbean Ministers of Labour in Barbados and she joined the celebrations of the Industrial Tribunal of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas in its Day of Solidarity as the Feature Speaker.

Her Excellency holds a Bachelor of Laws degree (LL.B) from the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill; a Certificate of Legal Education (LEC) from Hugh Wooding Law School; a Masters of Law degree (LLM) in International Legal Studies from the American University’s Washington College of Law and an Executive Masters in Business Administration (EMBA) with distinction from the Arthur Lok Jack Graduate School of Business, UWI. She also holds certification in International Arbitration in Oil and Gas cases, Mediation, Conciliation and Global Development and Social Justice.

A Fulbright/Hubert Humphrey Fellow with specialization in Environmental Law, she is the recipient of two other fellowships namely the Georgetown University Leadership Fellowship and the Commonwealth Judicial Education Institute Fellowship. Her Excellency is the author of three textbooks on Industrial Relations and Labour Law, and she serves as an Adjunct Lecturer in Labour Law.