Dr. Nel is senior lecturer in Department of Procedural Law, Faculty of Law, at the University of Johannesburg. His core teaching competency is criminal justice (both national and international), and he currently lectures criminal procedure, introduction to law, and co-lectures in international criminal law.
Werner obtained a LLB degree in 2008 and LLM degree (International law) in 2009 from the University of Johannesburg. In 2019, he obtained a LLD – (Doctor of Laws) degree from the University of Pretoria with the main dissertation focus being Religious Persecution and Religious Freedom in the context of International Criminal- and Human Rights Law. He has presented various papers at national and international conferences and published multiple peer-reviewed international journal articles with a focus on the intersection between religion and international law, and related disciplines. Werner is author of the book Grievous religious persecution: A conceptualisation of crimes against humanity of religious persecution (2021). He is the book review editor for the International Journal for Religious Freedom and former secretary of the Religious Liberty Commission, South Africa