Born on 19th March, 1964 in Murang’a County, Professor Annie Patricia Kameri-Mbote has been described as a woman of many firsts.
She is on record as the first female professor of Law in Kenya in 2011. She is also the first female dean at the University of Nairobi, School of Law for the period between 2012 and 2016.
In 2019, she was feted for being the first woman in East and Central Africa to be awarded with a higher Doctorate of Doctor of Laws. Her thesis was titled “Contending Norms in a Plural Legal System: The Limits of Formal Law.”
Despite her phenomenal success, Kameri-Mbote’s beginning was humble having started her early education at Mugoiri Primary School in Murang’a County. She was later transferred to a boarding school at St. Michael’s Primary School in Kirinyaga County, Kenya for her upper primary studies and sat the Certificate of Primary Education examinations in 1976.
She later proceeded to Loreto High School, Limuru in Kiambu County for her Ordinary and Advanced level studies, completing them in 1982.
In 1984, she began her Bachelor of Laws (L.L.B) undergraduate studies at the then Faculty of Law, University of Nairobi which she completed in 1987, and obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Law, Second Class (Upper Division Honors).
She was admitted to the Roll of Advocates in 1988 following successful completion of her course at the Kenya School of Law, obtaining a Postgraduate Diploma in Law.
She furthered her studies in the United Kingdom at the University of Warwick obtaining a Master’s Degree (L.L.M) in Law and Development in 1989.
From 1994 to 1995, on a study leave to Zimbabwe, she underwent training in gender and the law, which led to a Postgraduate Diploma in Women’s Law at the University of Zimbabwe.
Prof. Kameri-Mbote proceeded to Stanford University for doctoral research on a Fulbright junior staff development scholarship where she obtained a Master’s Degree in Juridical Sciences (JSM) in 1996 and earned a doctorate from Stanford University in 1999 specializing in property rights and environmental law.
As a professor of law, she has published extensively in the areas of gender, environment and natural resources, property (land and intellectual property), and science and technology. She published over fifteen books, written four theses, over twenty journal articles, and more than twenty book chapters challenging thinking in various areas of the law. In 2017, the University of Oslo awarded her an honorary degree in law because of her significant contribution in studying the cross-section of women’s, environmental law, and law and development and her immense research in these areas.
She was a member of the Committee of Eminent Persons appointed by President Mwai Kibaki in February 2006 to advise the government on the way forward for the then stalled constitution review process and also served as a Policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
She was instrumental in the establishment of Strathmore University’s Law School between 2009 and April 2012.
In the legal profession, Professor Kameri-Mbote has conferred the rank of Senior Counsel in 2012. In 2015, she was honored with the Elder of the Burning Spear (EBS).
In her 39-page Curriculum Vitae, Prof. Kameri-Mbote describes her life’s mission as to live, learn and leave an enduring legacy in life, research and other intellectually creative enterprises. She aspires to live by two mantras; “Paths are made by walking” and a second one by U.S President Woodrow Wilson, which states “You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enrich the world.”
