Marius Pieterse

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”

Today, I was one of the invited speakers at an Urban Law Day Roundtable webinar, organised by UN Habitat jointly with the Fordham Urban Law Center. The roundtable, which also represents the launch of the book Law and the New Urban Agenda co-edited by the Urban Law Center’s Nestor Davidson and Geeta Tewari, involved some … More Urban Law Day Roundtable Webinar: Law and the New Urban Agenda, and the current crisis (6 October 2020)

The South African Cities Studies Conference was held virtually this year, co-hosted by the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning at the School of Architecture and Planning at Wits University; the Gauteng City-Region Observatory and the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies at the School of Architecture and Planning at … More South African Cities Studies Conference (31 August – 4 September 2020)

This article has just appeared online in Urban Forum (with hardcopy publication to follow). It can be read here. It is the outcome of extensive desk, observation and interview research conducted in the South African towns of Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging, falling under the Emfuleni local municipality, which suffered a high-profile governance collapse in 2018. In … More Publication: Anatomy of a Crisis: Structural Factors Contributing to the Collapse of Urban Municipal Governance in Emfuleni, South Africa

This chapter appears in Law and the New Urban Agenda, edited by Nestor M Davidson and Geeta Tewari, which has recently been published by Routledge (London and New York, 2020). Law and the New Urban Agenda aims to offer ‘a constructive and critical evaluation of the legal dimensions of the New Urban Agenda’. The chapter … More Publication: Book Chapter: Shifting Paradigms from Between the Lines? Legal Internalizations of the Right to Adequate Housing in South Africa

Today, I was one of the invited speakers at the Urban Law Day webinar organised by UN Habitat jointly with the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies at the University of London. The theme for the day was “The Post-Covid City: Lessons for the Future in Law and Development”. I delivered a presentation entitled “Rights-clashes, legal … More Urban Law Day Webinar: The Post-COVID City: Lessons for the Future in Law and Development (10 July 2020)

I am currently participating in a virtual Expert Group Meeting on Inclusive Cities co-organised by UN Habitat, the Geneva Human Rights Platform of the Geneva Academy and the Geneva Cities Hub, in coordination with the office of the UN High-Commissioner for Human Rights. The meeting includes focused discussions on human rights mainstreaming within the domains … More UN Habitat, Geneva Human Rights Platform & Geneva Cities Hub Expert Group Meeting on Inclusive Cities (5-6 May 2020)

As member of the South African National Department on Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation’s Policy and Legislative Review Team (POLERT) it is both an honour and a challenge to be tasked with thinking through the legal implications of, and possibilities for, the national human settlements response to the COVID19 pandemic, specifically in overcrowded urban informal … More Legal dimensions of COVID19 response in urban informal settlements