Dr Haynes obtained his Bachelor of Laws degree with First Class Honours from the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados on a National Scholarship from the State of St Vincent and the Grenadines. He thereafter completed his Master of Laws with Distinction at the University of Nottingham on a British Chevening Scholarship, followed by the PhD at Durham University on a Commonwealth Scholarship. He returned to the Caribbean to qualify as a Barrister/Solicitor at the Norman Manley Law School in Jamaica.

He has served as a Legal Consultant to several governments and international organisations, including the Governments of Canada, Jamaica, Barbados and St Vincent and the Grenadines, the American Bar Association (Rule of Law Initiative), the British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and European Union (EDF Programme), the World Bank and the Caribbean Association of National Olympic Committees (CANOC). He has also provided expert advice to various governments and international organisations, including the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA), USAID, and INTERPOL.

He drafted the Protection of Persons with Disability Bills for Barbados and St Vincent and the Grenadines; as well as the IOM’s Model Legislation on Migrant Smuggling; and the American Bar Association’s Guide for Judges and Prosecutors on Human Trafficking. In his capacity as National Rapporteur on Contemporary Slavery for the International Academy of Comparative Law, he drafted the Report on the continuities and discontinuities between historic and contemporary forms of slavery in the Caribbean. As a member of the Sentencing Advisory Committee, Dr Haynes, along with leading Judges from the Caribbean and UK, also drafted Sentencing Guidelines for the nine Eastern Caribbean countries that are under the jurisdiction of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court.

His research has been cited with approval by, inter alia, the Council of Europe Group of Experts on Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA), the Caribbean Association of Judicial Officers (CAJO), and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties. His book, Caribbean Anti-Trafficking Law and Practice (Hart: Oxford, 2019) is widely used by law enforcement, judicial officers, prosecutors, and policy makers, while his co-authored book, Commonwealth Caribbean Sports Law (Routledge, 2020), has informed the operational policies of several sporting federations in the Caribbean, and is a key point of reference in the resolution of sporting disputes between athletes and sporting federations.

His research on human trafficking won the UNESCO/Juan Bosch Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Social Science Research in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2022.

He retains an active interest in sport, having previously captained the Ustinov College Cricket Club while at Durham University. He presently serves as a Commissioner on the Commonwealth Games Commission’s Ethics Commission; a member of Cricket West Indies Governance and Transformation Committee; and is a member of the Disciplinary Committee of the Windward Islands Cricket Board.  

Dr Haynes’ research challenges the asymmetries in anti-trafficking law, international investment law and sports law that operate to oppress and marginalise vulnerable communities, including victims of human trafficking, indigenous/Third World communities, and sports people. He also explores the emancipatory potential of the law through the lens of decolonial studies, intersectionality theory, TWAIL, and Feminist theory.