News Releases

New UWI St. Augustine Campus Principal Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine

For Release Upon Receipt - June 13, 2022

St. Augustine


Change Agent, Thought Leader, Regional Activist

Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine, Campus Principal Designate, The UWI St. Augustine Campus

Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine, Campus Principal Designate, The UWI St. Augustine Campus 

ST. AUGUSTINE, Trinidad and Tobago. Monday 13, June 2022 – The University of the West Indies (The UWI) has announced Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine as Principal of the St. Augustine Campus effective August 1, 2022.

Professor Antoine’s UWI journey began in 1989, in the Faculty of Law, Cave-Hill as a Temporary Lecturer who became the inaugural Director and initiator of the successful Master of Law (LLM) programme, The UWI’s first multi-campus, hybrid delivery programme, launched in 2002.  She was one of the youngest UWI lecturers to be appointed to the rank of Professor, in 2004, and the first sitting Dean of the Faculty of Law, St. Augustine, serving two terms. In 2021, she was appointed Pro Vice-Chancellor, Graduate Studies and Research. The appointment as Campus Principal, signals yet another pivotal milestone in her 32-year journey at the regional institution. 

A UWI alumna, Antoine has served as lead consultant to all of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) governments, Canada, UK, USA, and numerous international organisations, on a wide range of diverse issues. Her consultancies include the authoring of transformational reports on key issues of legal policy and development, drafting of new laws, advocacy, training and capacity-building of NGOs and the judiciary legal professionals. 

Notably, this transformational work includes Offshore Finance, the CARICOM Harmonisation of Labour Law Report, HIV, Non-discrimination, Employment, Free Movement of Peoples, The OAS’s Inter-American Convention against Corruption, the Turks & Caicos Islands legislative reform project and, more recently, as Chair, of the CARICOM Regional Commission’s Report on Marijuana and as UN-ECLAC Expert on the Escazú Agreement on Climate and Environmental Matters. 

Professor Antoine established the International Human Rights Clinic, an innovative legal education model twinning academia with activism and practitioners. It has interrogated important causes such as migrants/refugees, indigenous peoples, children’s rights, LGBTI and gender justice. She is currently focused on the injustice meted out to remand prisoners incarcerated for inordinately lengthy periods, including female murder-accused who were victims of domestic violence, under an EU-funded UWI project. Under her leadership, she visited the prisons with students and a historic constitutional motion was filed challenging the constitutionality of the remand phenomenon. Her pro-bono representation includes another landmark case before the Equal Opportunities Tribunal, on mental disability discrimination.

As Dean of Law, she was instrumental in shaping curriculum and introduced cutting-edge additions such as Oil & Gas Law, HIV, Banking, and Discrimination Law. She also introduced the ground-breaking Makandal Daaga Scholarship, an equal opportunity scholarship where applicants may be of any age, gender, race, or CARICOM nationality. The scholarship creates greater access to the Law programme and provides the opportunity for the recipients who are change-agents to be equipped in Law and further their work in activism and social development.

Antoine is a Cambridge Pegasus Fellow, an Oxford and Commonwealth Scholar and was named by the Caribbean Court of Justice in 2021 as a Pioneering Caribbean Women Eminent Jurist Awardee. Professor Antoine holds a doctorate from Oxford University in Offshore Financial Law and, in 2011, was elected by OAS States a Commissioner at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Washington; in 2014, she was elected President, the first person from Trinidad and Tobago. She served as OAS Head of the Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Unit and was appointed Rapporteur for Persons of African Descent and Rapporteur Against Discrimination and Rapporteur of Indigenous Peoples. More recently, she served as a Temporary Court of Appeal Judge to the Commercial Division of the Eastern Caribbean Court of Appeal.

As a champion of health, discrimination, and gender issues, she is President of the 66-year-old Family Planning Association, the oldest NGO in Trinidad and Tobago and the premier provider of sexual and reproductive health services and advocacy. In July 2021, she was recruited to the Board of Trustees of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, London.

Campus Principal Designate Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine’s scholarship is acknowledged for its quality, depth, diversity, creativity, humanity and breadth. She has served on select research teams at some of the world’s most prestigious universities, such as Oxford and McGill. In addition, 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. She also chaired The UWI’s Standing Committee on University Regulations.

Among her 52 awards and honours is the coveted Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence. 

In 2006, she became the first person from the Faculty of Law, to win the Regional Award for Excellence in Research, after being nominated by her peers. In 2013, she created history as the only individual to win the Vice Chancellor’s award for Excellence twice, this time for Public Service. In 2008, she was honoured as one of the University’s distinguished “60 under 60 academics”, during the regional institution’s 60th anniversary celebrations; then again, in 2018, she was named among the “70 Outstanding Cave Hill Alumni”.

Professor Antoine has an impressive publication output with over 17 books, texts and published manuscripts, more than 18 book chapters and 45 selected articles, published speeches, and numerous conference papers. She authored two pioneering texts, published by the Oxford University Press, a distinction for the regional academic community and a first for the Faculty of Law.

Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine has honoured The UWI’s ethos by using her scholarship to support NGOs, fuel activism, and promote social change, justice and development. 

Offering personal congratulations to the Campus Principal Designate, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice-Chancellor of The UWI, stated, “Professor Antoine has had a remarkable professional journey. She is a history maker and modern-day freedom fighter whose work has been transformational regionally and internationally. As the University and its respective campuses embark on a significant revolution, we are confident in the intellect and respect that she brings to lead at St Augustine. As a community, we share in celebrating this moment of personal and professional achievement for her, and welcome her with the fullest support”. 

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About The University of the West Indies 

The UWI has been and continues to be a pivotal force in every aspect of Caribbean development; residing at the centre of all efforts to improve the well-being of people across the region. 

From a university college of London in Jamaica with 33 medical students in 1948, The UWI is today an internationally respected, global university with near 50,000 students and five campuses: Mona in Jamaica, St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago, Cave Hill in Barbados, Five Islands in Antigua and Barbuda and its Open Campus, and 10 global centres in partnership with universities in North America, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe. 

The UWI offers over 800 certificate, diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Culture, Creative and Performing Arts, Food and Agriculture, Engineering, Humanities and Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science and Technology, Social Sciences, and Sport. As the Caribbean’s leading university, it possesses the largest pool of Caribbean intellect and expertise committed to confronting the critical issues of our region and wider world. 

The UWI has been consistently ranked among the top universities globally by the most reputable ranking agency, Times Higher Education (THE). In the latest World University Rankings 2022, released in September 2021, The UWI moved up an impressive 94 places from last year. In the current global field of some 30,000 universities and elite research institutes, The UWI stands among the top 1.5%. 

The UWI is the only Caribbean-based university to make the prestigious lists since its debut in the rankings in 2018. In addition to its leading position in the Caribbean, it is also in the top 20 for Latin America and the Caribbean and the top 100 global Golden Age universities (between 50 and 80 years old).  The UWI is also featured among the leading universities on THE’s Impact Rankings for its response to the world’s biggest concerns, outlined in the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Good Health and Wellbeing; Gender Equality and Climate Action. 

For more, visit www.uwi.edu. 

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of “The”) 

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