Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine has been appointed as the new Pro Vice-Chancellor of the Board for Graduate Studies and Research (BGSR) at The University of the West Indies (The UWI). Having completed two terms as the first Dean, Faculty of Law St. Augustine and regional University Dean, Professor Antoine now heads the University’s Board for Graduate Studies and Research, to oversee its policy and operational plans for development and regulation. The portfolio also includes management of administration, funding as well as monitoring and evaluation of graduate education and research throughout the regional UWI system.

Professor Antoine is a Cambridge and Oxford scholar, holding a doctorate from Oxford University in Offshore Financial Law. She is a long-serving member of The UWI, whose journey began in 1989, in the Faculty of Law, Cave-Hill as a Temporary Lecturer, then Lecturer, 1991.  Appointed Professor since 2004, she was the inaugural Director and initiator of the successful Master of Law (LLM) programme, The UWI’s first regional, hybrid delivery programme, launched in 2002 and chaired the Faculty’s Graduate programme till present. She also served as Deputy Dean and on numerous committees, including Campus Chair of Examinations at Cave Hill. She is currently Chair, Standing Committee on Regulations at The UWI.

Professor Antoine has received numerous accolades and prizes regionally and internationally. These include the coveted UWI Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research in 2006, and again in 2013 (Public Service), the only individual to have won the award twice. Additionally, she was honoured as one of the University’s distinguished “60 under 60 academics”, during its 60th anniversary celebrations in 2008 and in 2018, “70 Outstanding Cave Hill Alumni”. She also won the UK Emerald Literati Prize.  In 2011, she was elected by OAS States a Commissioner at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Washington and in 2014 elected President, the first person from Trinidad and Tobago. She was OAS’s Head of the Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Unit, appointed Rapporteur for Persons of African Descent and Against Discrimination and Rapporteur of Indigenous Peoples. Antoine is a Commonwealth Scholar, Cambridge Pegasus Fellow and in 2021 she was identified as a Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ)’s Pioneering Caribbean Women Eminent Jurist Awardee. She has been part of select research teams at some of the world’s most prestigious universities, such as Oxford and McGill and served as temporary Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal judge. She was made Honorary Member of the international Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, UK, a status granted to “those who have made a unique and exceptional contribution” to the field.

Professor Antoine’s outstanding career also extends into international public service, consultancy and leadership. As lead Consultant to all of the governments in the Caribbean, UK, USA and Canada, the judiciary and several international organisations, including the EU, OAS, IADB, World Bank, CARICOM, UNDP, UNICEF, ILO, UNIFEM, CAREC, ECLAC, PANCAP, UNAIDS and UNDCP, she has drafted legislation, led international teams and authored influential Policy Reports on several varied key issues. Notably, this transformational work includes Offshore Finance Policy Reform, the CARICOM Harmonisation of Labour Law Report, HIV, Non-discrimination, Free Movement of Peoples, OAS Inter-American Convention against Corruption, the TCI legislative reform project and more recently, as Chair, the CARICOM Regional Commission’s Report on Marijuana and as UN-ECLAC Expert on the Escazú Agreement on Environmental Matters.

Professor Antoine has an impressive publication output with over 17 books, texts and published manuscripts, over 18 book chapters and over 45 selected articles, published speeches and numerous conference papers. It includes two pioneering texts published by the Oxford University Press, a distinction for the regional academic community and a first for the Faculty of Law. She has also used her scholarship to support NGOs, fuel activism and social change, honouring The UWI’s ethos.

The University community extends congratulations to Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine on her appointment which took effect on September 1, 2021 for a three-year term.