While on a travelling scholarship, Lord Cooke was awarded an MA in 1954 from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and subsequently a PhD in 1955.

Cooke was the only Commonwealth judge in the past century to sit in the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords on United Kingdom appeals.

Rather, he believed that "[c]ommon denominators may be usefully sought, as long as the process is not compelled from outside and the national ethos is allowed its own weight.

In Fraser v State Services Commission he famously made the comment that "it is arguable that some common law rights may go so deep that even Parliament cannot be accepted by the Courts to have destroyed them.

"[10][11] This view contradicted the dominant parliamentary supremacy theories of A. V. Dicey, which had guided common law courts since the late 19th century.

However, Cooke's position recalled a similar opinion expressed by the famous 17th century English jurist, Sir Edward Coke.

[12] Cooke held that a privative clause in the Commerce Act 1975 did not prevent the courts from reviewing a decision made by the Secretary of Energy.

In delivering the leading judgment, President Cooke remarked that "we [the Court] would fail in our duty if we did not give an effective remedy to a person whose legislatively affirmed rights have been infringed".

In 1987, Cooke delivered the judgment of the Court of Appeal in the landmark case of New Zealand Maori Council v Attorney-General, which sought to clarify what Parliament meant by section 9 of the State Owned Enterprises Act 1986.

Cooke held that "the Treaty created an enduring relationship of a fiduciary nature akin to a partnership, each party accepting a positive duty to act in good faith, fairly, reasonably and honourably towards the other".

The authors went on to remark "[t]hat one man could, in a few years, cause such destruction exposes the fragility of contemporary legal systems and the need for vigilant exposure and rooting out of error".

[16] He took issue with the tone of the Meagher Preface, remarking that "those familiar with the successive 'rooting out' of heretics in England under the later Tudors will recognise the genre of this denunciatory writing.