Dr Rugemeleza A.K. Nshala is the Executive Director of Lawyers’ Environmental Action Team (LEAT), the organization he co-founded in April 1994. He led it from 1994 to 2003 and rejoined it in December 2012 as its Executive Director. He holds a Bachelor of Laws Degree (LL. B) from the University of Dar es Salaam (1993); a Master of Laws and Doctor of Juridical Sciences (S.J.D) from Harvard Law School (1997 and 2012) and a Master of Environmental Management (MEM) from Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies (2007).

He served as the President of the Tanganyika Law Society (TLS) Tanzania Mainland Bar Association from April 2019 to April 2021, and he was its Vice President from April 2018 to April 2019. He is the current Chairperson of Tanzania Land Alliance (TALA), a coalition of CSO on land issues; the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Unbound, an NGO supporting orphans and children from low-income communities to obtain an education; and he is the President of Tanzania International Arbitration Centre (TIAC), a TLS founded independent arbitration centre. He is also a board member of HakiRasilimali.

Dr Nshala wrote his SJD dissertation on the state and legal regime of the extractive industry in sub-Saharan Africa using Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia on the one hand and contrasting them with Botswana on the other. He has been a trainer and facilitator in many pieces of training in the continent, particularly the Regional Extractive Industries Knowledge Hub Summer School Governance in Oil, Gas and Mining Revenues, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), between 2009 to 2013. He also trained lawyers in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania on the same topic from 2013 to 2017. He has been practicing law in Tanzania for almost 27 years.