Marius Pieterse

The Environmental Law Association of South Africa (ELA) has been hosting monthly “streaming club” events during the Covid-19 lockdown. These consist of ELA members streaming a topical documentary, followed by a panel discussion on issues raised by the film. Tonight, I had the pleasure of participating in the panel discussing a short film on the … More Online panel: ELA Streaming Club: Reclaim the City, the Adonisi judgment and Spatial Justice

The Oxford Compendium of National Legal Responses to Covid-19 was released on 27 April – as per the Oxford University Press website, the Compendium ” is a global academic collaboration mapping legal responses to Covid-19 in dozens of participating countries and territories. Each entry is structured identically and explores the role of public law, institutional … More Publication: South African country report in Oxford Compendium of National Legal Responses to Covid-19

I presented this online guest lecture today, in a session on land and housing rights for the National University of Colombia and UN Habitat’s Policy, Legislation and Governance Unit’s joint course in “Metropolitan policy and governance, and urban and metropolitan legislation”, which is part of the National University of Colombia’s graduate program in spatial analysis, … More Guest lecture: “The slow convergence of rights to housing and land in South African constitutional law and jurisprudence”

The 2020 European Yearbook of Constitutional Law is dedicated to cities in constitutional law. I contributed a paper that briefly reflects on urban governance as a determinant of health and considers how urban local governments can and do work to protect and fulfil the right to health. You can access my contribution, as well as … More Publication: “Urban Governance and the Right to a Healthy City”

This ope-ed was published by The Conversation Africa today, and can be read here.

As of today, I am a listed member of the Association of Urban Legal Scholars (AULS) under the auspices of the Fordham Urban Law Center. For more on AULS, see http://www.auls.net

I am happy to announce that I was admitted by the Johannesburg High Court as a legal practitioner (advocate) on Thursday 4 February 2021.

This academic article has just appeared online for the forthcoming print issue (2020 issue 2) of the South African Journal on Human Rights. Based on a desk study, which confirmed a hunch from earlier qualitative research done in a South African secondary city (see here), it aims to show the need for a clearer wall … More Publication: “Out of the Shadows: Towards a Line between Party and State in South African Local Government”

The latest issue of the South African Journal of Human Rights will contain my review of Maria Mousmouti’s book Designing Effective Legislation. The (very positive) review not only discusses the premise of the book but also recalls how it guided me through a stint of regulatory drafting last year. The book, which details the thinking … More Publication: Review of “Designing Effective Legislation” by Maria Mousmouti

This academic article has just appeared in the African Journal of International and Comparative Law. It conducts a detailed comparative analysis of SADC cities’ constitutional status; operational, functional and financial autonomy; collaborative and strategic space; and the different accountability structures to which they answer. It further reflects on structural and political challenges to effective urban … More Publication: “Devolution, Urban Autonomy and Local Governance in the Cities of SADC”