Ontario’s new human rights watchdog is an academic and long-time champion of some of society’s most vulnerable.

Renu Mandhane, executive director of the University of Toronto law faculty’s international human rights program, is the incoming chief commissioner for the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

Mandhane, whose appointment to the $146,700-a-year post must be approved by the legislature’s standing committee on government agencies, succeeds former Toronto mayor Barbara Hall, who had presided over the commission since 2005.

Hall, whose term was extended four times, retired in February. Ruth Goba had been helming the agency on an interim basis while the Liberals scrambled to find a full-time replacement.

Premier Kathleen Wynne hailed Mandhane’s appointment, which will take effect after her confirmation this fall.

“As a long-time advocate for human rights with a focus on advancing women’s rights, we are fortunate that someone so passionate and experienced will lead the important work done by the Ontario Human Rights Commission,” Wynne said in a statement.

A member of the Canada Committee of Human Rights Watch and advisor to PEN International, Mandhane was a criminal lawyer with a special interest in helping victims of sexual abuse and federal prisoners.

She has written extensively on the plight of Ashley Smith, 19, who died in 2007 after self-inflicted strangulation while in custody at Kitchener’s Grand Valley Institution.

In a statement, Mandhane said her work internationally “has impressed upon me how important it is to act locally to ensure sustainable social change.”

“I am humbled to be provided with an opportunity to take up that challenge,” she said.

The commission flights discrimination and harassment by enforcing the Ontario Human Rights Code, the provincial law that ensures everyone has equal rights and opportunities in areas such as employment and housing, regardless of race, gender, age, disability or anything else.