Professor Rose Marie Belle- Antoine

Rose-Marie Belle Antoine, Dean, Faculty of Law, UWI, Professor of Labour Law and Offshore Financial Law is an award winning author, attorney and international legal consultant. She holds a doctorate in law from Oxford University, an LLM from Cambridge, and the LLB from The UWI. Antoine was elected by OAS states as a Commissioner on the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, Washington 2011 and elected President in 2015. She was the Rapporteur for Persons of African Descent and Discrimination, Rapporteur for Indigenous Peoples and the inaugural Head of the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Unit at the IACHR/OAS.  She created history by winning the distinguished UWI Vice Chancellor’s Prize for Excellence in Research and Public Service twice. Antoine has published twelve books, including two with the renowned Oxford University Press and several articles.

Formerly a legal officer at the ILO in Geneva, Antoine has served as Lead Consultant to all of the governments of CARICOM, the UK, Venezuela, USA and Canada, and to several international organizations, including the UNDCP, ILO, UNIFEM, EU, OAS, IADB, World Bank, CARICOM, OECS, UNICEF, PANCAP, CAREC, and UNAIDS.  Consequently, she authored influential Policy Reports and drafted legislation on several diverse subjects including Drugs and Narcotics, Labour Law, Free Movement, HIV, Financial Law, Health, Discrimination, Mutual Legal Assistance, Women’s Rights, Money-Laundering, Anti-Corruption, the Judiciary, Public Service, Police, Child/ Juvenile Justice, Education and Human Trafficking. As EU/ UK consultant, she led an international team that carried out extensive law reform in the Turks and Caicos Islands which was cited as the forerunner for returning the TCI to democratic governance. As ILO Consultant, she drafted a Labour Code for Saint Lucia. Her CARICOM Harmonization in Labour Law Report 1992 has been influential, serving as the blueprint for the CARICOM/ILO model labour laws and the catalyst for law reform in the region, including on equal opportunity. Antoine’s 2009 CARICOM Report on Law & Freedom of Movement serves as the background document for continuing the CSME’s integration agenda. As a result of this scholarship and consultancy work, she is described by governments, international sources and others as the “foremost labour law expert in Labour Law in the region” and the “leading” authority in the region in International Financial Law and a “change agent” in HIV law.