Professor Nasila Selasini Rembe

    Nasila Rembe is Professor of Law and currently the Chair holder, UNESCO ‘Oliver Tambo’ Chair of Human Rights at the University of Fort Hare, South Africa.  In this capacity, he is also the Director of the ‘Oliver Tambo’ Human Rights Resource and Documentation Centre. The Chair has become the focal point for organizing and developing human rights education, training, research, documentation and networking within and without South Africa. It assists in the capacity-building  and professional training of officials with special  responsibilities for human rights such as magistrates, law enforcement and correctional service personnel, national human rights institutions as well as NGO’s, leaders of traditional institutions and faith organisations, youth and educators and civil society as a whole. In recognition of its work, the ‘Oliver Tambo’ Chair was recipient of the UNITWIN/UNESCO Award in 2002, and honorary Citizen of the City of Toledo, USA.

    Professor Rembe graduated with a Bachelor and Masters degree in law from the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, and PhD from the University of Wales in the United Kingdom, specialising in Public International Law. His academic record extends to over twenty years of university service in Africa and elsewhere. He has taught, among others, public international law; human rights; jurisprudence; comparative law; and law and development. In recognition of his expertise,   Professor Rembe has been appointed to serve on a number of editorial boards and professional bodies. Among others, he is currently a member of the International Jury for the award of the UNESCO Prize in Human Rights Education.

    He was Rockefeller Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Human Rights, Columbia University in New York; Visiting Assistant Professor, Ohio State University College of Law, Columbus, Ohio; North-South Dialogue Fellow at the Institute of International Law and International Relations, University of Graz; Guest Researcher, Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, Oslo; Visiting Professor, Faculty of Law, North West University.

    Professor Rembe has researched and published in the field of international law, human rights and, law and development. His work, and that of the ‘Oliver Tambo’ Chair, has a strong focus on issues of peace, social justice and development, the empowerment of local communities to participate in governance and social development, including capacity to intervene in matters that affect their social and public life.