Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine (centre) with the Faculty of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) team on a 2019 prison visit. Since its 2012 establishment as a full faculty, UWI St Augustine’s Faculty of Law has become a powerhouse for social advocacy. Under Professor Antoine’s leadership as first Dean—and now under current Dean Dr Alicia Elias-Roberts, who this year launched a pre-law programme to widen access to legal education—the faculty continues to move beyond the classroom to directly impact Caribbean jurisprudence.
A crowning achievement is the IHRC, an innovative initiative merging academia, practitioners, and students to address the concerns of marginalised groups, including the First Peoples, migrants, and those seeking disability justice. Historically, the faculty became the first UWI delegation to present before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2019, where they championed justice for prisoners by addressing remand delays.
The IHRC’s impact was further solidified in 2020 through landmark constitutional litigation challenging the remand system. Faculty researchers also lead global conversations in Intellectual Property (IP) Law, helping shape national policy. Through these achievements, the Faculty of Law remains a vital steward of regional progress, fulfilling its mission to “save the world through law.”
