Cowdery was elected President of the International Association of Prosecutors in 1999 and re-elected to a second three-year term in September 2002. Since his retirement as public prosecutor, he holds a number of honorary academic positions including as an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Sydney's Institute of Criminology; a Visiting Professorial Fellow at the University of New South Wales and the University of Wollongong's law faculties; and as an Adjunct Professor at Charles Sturt University. Cowdery is also a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.