He was educated at Sedbergh School and thereafter studied Greats at Balliol College, Oxford, from 1946 to 1950, where he played cricket and rugby union, and ran cross-country for the university.
After serving on British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan’s staff during his "Wind of Change" tour of Africa in 1960, Robertson spent three years in the Cabinet Office.
He was a member of FEASTA and a patron of SANE (South Africa New Economics Foundation), which was set up following his visit there in 1996.
In October 2003, at the XXIX annual conference of the Pio Manzù International Research Centre, Rimini, Italy (closely associated with the UN), he was awarded a gold medal for his "remarkable contribution to the promotion of a new economics grounded in social and spiritual values" over the past 25 years.
James Robertson and his wife, Alison (née Pritchard) lived in Oxfordshire.