The SARChI chair on Cities, Law and Environmental Sustainability at NWU Potchefstroom, of which I am a fellow, hosts “critical conversations” on urban law topics three times a year. I was the speaker at todays “critical conversation”, presenting some of the ideas from my work on public-law regulation of corporations who play a role in urban governance. My talk today focused on accommodating the realities of corporate co-governance within developing public-law concepts in South African constitutional and human rights law, so as to both normatively steer and ensure accountability for various forms of relational urban governance involving corporate power. (I am also currently doing work that considers these issues at a global scale, both in relation to the role of public law in structuring developmental and participatory urban co-governance, and in relation to the normative and accountability functions of international human rights law for hybrid public/private urban co-governance). I am grateful to the participants in today’s conversation for extremely rich and challenging engagement, which gave me plenty food for thought.
You can watch the recording of the event here.
Marius Pieterse 