Hennie van As is a Professor of Public Law and Director of the Centre for Law in Action at the Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. He is an admitted advocate and completed a Diploma in Police Science, the degrees B.Iuris, Bachelor of Laws and Doctor of Laws. He completed post-doctoral studies at the La Salle University in Mexico. He is also responsible for the Refugee Rights Centre (ensuring access to legal advice and assistance) and the FishFORCE Academy. He teaches Constitutional Law and the Enforcement of Marine and Coastal Legislation. Furthermore, he focuses on the drafting, implementation, enforcement and administration of legislation and access to legal aid.

Within local government, he concentrates on municipal health law, municipal law enforcement, improvement of local governance and council oversight. He has written municipal codes for more than 60 municipalities in South Africa. He also served as an expert member for the World Bank, for the development of local government legislation in East Timor.

With the financial assistance of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he established a Fisheries Crime Law Enforcement Academy (FishFORCE) at the university. FishFORCE’s main purpose is to combat sea fisheries crime and related criminal activities. It has started training fisheries control officers, national parks officials, police officers, tax officials and prosecutors in South Africa and it will be doing the same in other countries along the South and East African coastline and the Indian Ocean Rim.

He is an Honorary Life Member of the Institute for Municipal and Public Safety of Southern Africa and a Senior Honorary Fellow at the University of Wollongong, Australia.