Rose D’Sa is one of the UK Government nominated Members of a Brussels-based advisory body, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). In 2015 she was nominated again for an historic fifth term until 2020. She graduated from Birmingham Law School in 1979 with a Bachelor of Laws, and then returned to take her PhD in 1983.

Photo of Birmingham Law Alumna Rose D'Sa

Rose was born in Kenya and educated at Loreto Convent, Nairobi and at Millfield School, Somerset (where she was the holder of a tennis scholarship!). She graduated with First Class Honours from the University of Birmingham and also gained a PhD in Public International Law.

After qualifying as a Barrister in 1981 she held a visiting lectureship at the Kenya School of Law and lectureships in Law at Cardiff and Bristol University, before being appointed to work in the Commonwealth Secretariat in London where she assisted Commonwealth Governments on compliance with International Human Rights Law.

She was subsequently appointed as the first Professor of European Law at the University of Glamorgan in Wales and also awarded a Jean Monnet Chair in EC Law by the European Commission. Her numerous publications include European Community Law on State Aid published in London in 1998 by Sweet and Maxwell, with a Foreword by the former European Commission Vice-President, Lord Neil Kinnock. In preparation for their accession to the EU, Dr D’Sa also undertook numerous law assignments in the Justice sector of various Central and Eastern European Countries.

As an authority on European Law, she has worked for Cardiff law firms Geldards and Blake Morgan. She also won the ‘Welsh Woman into Europe’ prize for 1995 and was honoured by an invitation from the Queen to a State Banquet at Buckingham Palace a decade later, together with her husband, John Matthews, Emeritus Professor of Physical Geography at Swansea University.

Rose has played international seniors tennis for Wales. She was the number 3 ranked tennis player in Kenya in 1975 and has been ranked 13 in Great Britain in the over-55s. Her love of sport was influenced by her uncle, Aloysius Mendonca, a renowned hockey player who represented Kenya in four successive Olympics. She is also fond of ballroom dancing with her husband.