Marius Pieterse
Biographic Data
| ID | 1031939 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Marius Pieterse |
| GIVEN NAMES | Marius |
| FAMILY NAME | Pieterse |
| SIGNATURE | PIETERSE M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the Witwatersrand |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5163-8846 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 25 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 34 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The urban evolution of the right to health
This article examines how urbanisation is reshaping understandings, invocations and implementation of the right to health, from an individualist focus on access to medical treatment towards a more collective, solidarity-based conception. Drawing on treaty interpretation, domestic and international jurisprudence, the practice of health rights interpretation by urban local governments and soft law produced by global city networks, the article shows…
Justiciable socio-economic rights as adaptive law for urban resilience
This article argues that justiciable socio-economic rights enhance the adaptability and resilience of domestic legal systems, thereby enabling adaptive urban governance in times of crisis. It relates substantive concepts and standards associated with the protection of economic and social rights in international law to urban resilience, focusing on the right to adequate housing under Article 11 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultur…
Urban Collectives as Victims of International Human Rights Violations
Cities are places where people experience human rights violations collectively. Disputes arising from such experiences are increasingly percolating into the international legal arena. Focusing on decisions of international and regional human rights tribunals in matters concerning multiple individuals bound together by urban residence, this article considers how the urban condition is beginning to transform conceptions of victimhood, conventional …
Corporations and cities under distress
This article considers private sector embroilment in urban governance under disaster/crisis conditions in cities of the developing world, paying particular attention to the role of law in structuring urban governance regimes. Through a case study detailing the changing relationship dynamics between organised business and the South African metropolitan municipality of Nelson Mandela Bay during a confluence of the Covid-19 pandemic and a debilitati…
Rule of Law Through the ‘Urban Turn’ in South African Constitutionalism
The 1996 South African Constitution transformed municipalities from creatures of statute into an interdependent sphere of government, thereby enabling South African cities to carve out a space for autonomous urban governance, which is closely associated with the progressive realisation of socio-economic rights. This article considers how South African courts have deployed, reconfigured and channelled the rule of law in intergovernmental relations…
The relevance of the African regional human rights system in the urban age
In an attempt to reassert the relevance of international human rights law in contemporary urban contexts, this article considers the extent to which the provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights lend themselves to fruitful application in African cities, appropriation by African cities and the development of rights to African cities. The article ultimately argues that, despite the rural inclinations of its drafting context, ce…
Property ’s Shadow
Property as a legal assemblage works to produce and imagine space according to a dominant set of norms and principles, thereby casting an imagined projection into multiple worlds. This unduly narrows the lens through which governance actors perceive and mediate competing claims to urban space. In this article we engage this feature of property in the context of contestation over urban land in Durban, an intensely plural city of the global South. …
Human rights cities’ in Africa? Rights as resources for urban governance in the Global South
This article considers the use of human rights law as a resource for urban governance by African cities, thereby supplementing the growing literature on ‘human rights cities’ that has thus far focused on the experiences of cities in the Global North. It considers the motivations for and impact of human rights city initiatives, before taking a closer look at reported instances of rights invocation in and by African cities and pointing to factors t…
Urbanizing Human Rights Law
This article considers ways in which human rights law ought to respond to a growingly urban global order of blurred private—corporate—and state power. Fragmented and dispersed power comes together, in different configurations of public and private, in the cities and towns of the world. For this reason, local government presents the appropriate scale at which to re-conceptualize the operation of international human rights norms, also against priva…
Towards a Right to the City
This article illustrates the transformative potential of guaranteeing justiciable socio-economic rights in domestic law, by engaging with the judicial vindication, over nearly a quarter-century, of the right to housing in the South African Constitution. Initial assessments of housing rights litigation in the country suggested that, while the right provided temporary protection against eviction and could provide temporary relief in housing emergen…
Corporate power, urban governance and urban law
Outsourcing Governance
This article analyses the decline and near collapse of local government in South Africa through a political and legal lens. Given the paralysis of constitutionally envisaged political accountability procedures in the post-Mbeki period, residents and local businesses have increasingly resorted to courts and chapter 9 institutions, in addition to local organisation, protest and a range of direct actions. Courts previously afforded municipalities a …
Anatomy of a Crisis
Balancing Socio-economic Rights
In the context of a stand-off between housing rights advocates and the South African government over the appropriate way to safeguard the right to health in the country's urban informal settlements during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, this article reflects on some of the strengths and weaknesses of the local understanding of human rights. It argues for a holistic understanding of interdependent rights that allows for a reconciliation o…
Out of the shadows
This article aims to show the need for a clearer wall between political parties and state institutions in South Africa. The focus is on local government level where, it is argued, the absence of a dividing line between legislative and executive functions exacerbates the anti-democratic effects of a party/state conflation. The usurpation of local governance functions by unaccountable party-political structures is argued to frustrate urban autonomy…
Where is the periphery even? Capturing urban marginality in South African human rights law
This article questions the usefulness of the notion of an ‘urban periphery’ for efforts to capture and ameliorate urban marginalisation and exclusion through human rights-based litigation. Focusing on South Africa’s Gauteng City Region, the article argues that the notion of an urban periphery fails to capture the nuances of marginal urban life and the interests of poor, marginalised urban residents in accessing the city. In the specific context o…
A Year of Living Dangerously? Urban Assertiveness, Cooperative Governance and the First Year of Three Coalition-Led Metropolitan Municipalities in South Africa
South African cities enjoy significant constitutional autonomy and financial independence, meaning that they are well-placed to assert themselves against national and provincial governments, especially in situations of political discordance between different levels of government. This article considers the first year of multi-party coalition-led opposition governance in three South African cities, in attempting to better understand the relationsh…
Socio-economic Rights Adjudication and Democratic Urban Governance
VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee , Seite 12 - 34
Perverts, Outlaws and Dissidents
A Right to Transport? Moving Towards a Rights-Based Approach to Mobility in the City
Given the spatial and economic inequalities inherent to South African towns and cities, which have been exacerbated by recent waves of urbanisation, this article aims to situate the provision of public transport in South Africa within a rights-based framework. Relying upon urban theory on the 'right to the city', we illustrate how public transport, while not the subject of an independent constitutional right, is central to accessing the objects o…
Law, rights, space and sexual citizenship in South Africa
This article considers the legal and spatial dimensions of urban sexual citizenship in South Africa. It reflects upon the manner in which legal and spatial regulation of sex evokes the private/public dichotomy and upholds an essentially heteronormative conception of sexual citizenship, before evaluating rights-based strategies that have thus far been employed in attempts to resist this. Thereafter, it argues for amalgamating these strategies unde…
May Real Men Cry in Court? Masculinity, Equality and the South African Constitutional Court
This article takes issue with depictions of masculinity and male gender identity in the South African Constitutional Court's judgements on gender equality and sexuality. It argues that, while the Court rightly acknowledges that male gender identity is problematic and that societal norms and expectations relating to masculinity are core causes of the subordination of women, many of its judgements uphold and reinforce outdated, essentialist, hetero…
Rights and the City
Procedural Relief, Constitutional Citizenship and Socio-Economic Rights as Legitimate Expectations
It is often argued that the Constitutional Court adopts an 'administrative law approach' in deciding socio-economic rights matters. Following from this, this article considers the methodology inherent to the so-called 'second wave' of the Court's socio-economic rights jurisprudence. It argues that several features of this methodology correspond to the logic and method inherent to the doctrine of legitimate expectation in South African administrat…
Health, Social Movements, and Rights‐based Litigation in South Africa
This article investigates the impact of rights‐based litigation on social struggles in the South African health sector. It considers the manner in which individuals and social movements have utilized rights and the legal process in their efforts to dismantle the ill‐health/poverty cycle, in the particular context of the struggle for universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS. Relying on literature concerning the transformative potential of socio‐…
Health, Social Movements, and Rights‐based Litigation in South Africa
This article investigates the impact of rights‐based litigation on social struggles in the South African health sector. It considers the manner in which individuals and social movements have utilized rights and the legal process in their efforts to dismantle the ill‐health/poverty cycle, in the particular context of the struggle for universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS. Relying on literature concerning the transformative potential of socio‐…
Coming to Terms with Judicial Enforcement of Socio-Economic Rights
The debate about judicial involvement in socio-economic rights, inaugurated in the SAJHR in 1992 and still continuing, should be reconceptualised so that it can make a constructive contribution to contemporary discussions about an appropriate judicial role in a socially just constitutional dispensation. Many of the fears raised by participants in this debate about the legitimacy and competence of the judiciary in socio-economic rights matters are…
Where is the periphery even? Capturing urban marginality in South African human rights law
This article questions the usefulness of the notion of an ‘urban periphery’ for efforts to capture and ameliorate urban marginalisation and exclusion through human rights-based litigation. Focusing on South Africa’s Gauteng City Region, the article argues that the notion of an urban periphery fails to capture the nuances of marginal urban life and the interests of poor, marginalised urban residents in accessing the city. In the specific context o…
A Right to Transport? Moving Towards a Rights-Based Approach to Mobility in the City
Given the spatial and economic inequalities inherent to South African towns and cities, which have been exacerbated by recent waves of urbanisation, this article aims to situate the provision of public transport in South Africa within a rights-based framework. Relying upon urban theory on the 'right to the city', we illustrate how public transport, while not the subject of an independent constitutional right, is central to accessing the objects o…
The relevance of the African regional human rights system in the urban age
In an attempt to reassert the relevance of international human rights law in contemporary urban contexts, this article considers the extent to which the provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights lend themselves to fruitful application in African cities, appropriation by African cities and the development of rights to African cities. The article ultimately argues that, despite the rural inclinations of its drafting context, ce…
Outsourcing Governance
This article analyses the decline and near collapse of local government in South Africa through a political and legal lens. Given the paralysis of constitutionally envisaged political accountability procedures in the post-Mbeki period, residents and local businesses have increasingly resorted to courts and chapter 9 institutions, in addition to local organisation, protest and a range of direct actions. Courts previously afforded municipalities a …
Its a ‘Black Thing’
This article engages with the racial distinction inherent in legal dualism and the application of customary law, and questions the justification for upholding this distinction in a society founded on non-racialism. After exploring the theoretical foundations of racialism and the links between racialist and culturalist ideology, the article engages in a brief historical overview of legal dualism in South Africa before investigating the manifestati…
Corporate power, urban governance and urban law
A Year of Living Dangerously? Urban Assertiveness, Cooperative Governance and the First Year of Three Coalition-Led Metropolitan Municipalities in South Africa
South African cities enjoy significant constitutional autonomy and financial independence, meaning that they are well-placed to assert themselves against national and provincial governments, especially in situations of political discordance between different levels of government. This article considers the first year of multi-party coalition-led opposition governance in three South African cities, in attempting to better understand the relationsh…
May Real Men Cry in Court? Masculinity, Equality and the South African Constitutional Court
This article takes issue with depictions of masculinity and male gender identity in the South African Constitutional Court's judgements on gender equality and sexuality. It argues that, while the Court rightly acknowledges that male gender identity is problematic and that societal norms and expectations relating to masculinity are core causes of the subordination of women, many of its judgements uphold and reinforce outdated, essentialist, hetero…
Procedural Relief, Constitutional Citizenship and Socio-Economic Rights as Legitimate Expectations
It is often argued that the Constitutional Court adopts an 'administrative law approach' in deciding socio-economic rights matters. Following from this, this article considers the methodology inherent to the so-called 'second wave' of the Court's socio-economic rights jurisprudence. It argues that several features of this methodology correspond to the logic and method inherent to the doctrine of legitimate expectation in South African administrat…
Resuscitating Socio-Economic Rights
Notwithstanding the Constitutional Court of South Africa’s rejection of a minimum core approach to the enforcement of the socio-economic rights in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa
Cases and Comments
Cases and Comments
(1985). Cases and Comments. South African Journal on Human Rights: Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 137-181
Cases and Comments
Its a ‘Black Thing’
This article engages with the racial distinction inherent in legal dualism and the application of customary law, and questions the justification for upholding this distinction in a society founded on non-racialism. After exploring the theoretical foundations of racialism and the links between racialist and culturalist ideology, the article engages in a brief historical overview of legal dualism in South Africa before investigating the manifestati…
Coming to Terms with Judicial Enforcement of Socio-Economic Rights
The debate about judicial involvement in socio-economic rights, inaugurated in the SAJHR in 1992 and still continuing, should be reconceptualised so that it can make a constructive contribution to contemporary discussions about an appropriate judicial role in a socially just constitutional dispensation. Many of the fears raised by participants in this debate about the legitimacy and competence of the judiciary in socio-economic rights matters are…
The Potential of Socio-Economic Rights Litigation for the Achievement of Social Justice
This article considers the remedial and transformative potential of litigation based on legally enforceable socio-economic entitlements, such as the justiciable socio-economic rights contained in the 1996 South African Constitution. It focuses on the interpretation and enforcement of South African prisoners' constitutional rights to dignified conditions of detention (including the provision of adequate medical treatment at state expense) and to c…
Resuscitating Socio-Economic Rights
Notwithstanding the Constitutional Court of South Africa’s rejection of a minimum core approach to the enforcement of the socio-economic rights in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa
The Legitimizing / Insulating Effect of Socio-Economic Rights
Cet article tente d'élucider la manière dont les États peuvent utiliser leurs obligations issues des droits économiques et sociaux, afin de solidifier la légitimité constitutionnelle des lois qui ont pour but de promouvoir l'équité sociale. En prenant pour étude de cas l'Afrique du Sud, nous examinons de quelle manière ce pays a utilisé ses obligations constitutionnelles dans le but de faciliter l'accès aux soins de santé. Nous examinons égalemen…
Indirect Horizontal Application of the Right to Have Access to Health Care Services
Apart from their direct application against the state, the justiciability of socio-economic rights also requires the transformation of those aspects of private law that regulate relationships which are crucial for their effective enjoyment. This is acknowledged by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, which determines that rights may sometimes bind private parties and requires courts to develop the common law in accordance with …
Health, Social Movements, and Rights‐based Litigation in South Africa
This article investigates the impact of rights‐based litigation on social struggles in the South African health sector. It considers the manner in which individuals and social movements have utilized rights and the legal process in their efforts to dismantle the ill‐health/poverty cycle, in the particular context of the struggle for universal access to treatment for HIV/AIDS. Relying on literature concerning the transformative potential of socio‐…
Rights and the City
Procedural Relief, Constitutional Citizenship and Socio-Economic Rights as Legitimate Expectations
It is often argued that the Constitutional Court adopts an 'administrative law approach' in deciding socio-economic rights matters. Following from this, this article considers the methodology inherent to the so-called 'second wave' of the Court's socio-economic rights jurisprudence. It argues that several features of this methodology correspond to the logic and method inherent to the doctrine of legitimate expectation in South African administrat…
May Real Men Cry in Court? Masculinity, Equality and the South African Constitutional Court
This article takes issue with depictions of masculinity and male gender identity in the South African Constitutional Court's judgements on gender equality and sexuality. It argues that, while the Court rightly acknowledges that male gender identity is problematic and that societal norms and expectations relating to masculinity are core causes of the subordination of women, many of its judgements uphold and reinforce outdated, essentialist, hetero…
Perverts, Outlaws and Dissidents
A Right to Transport? Moving Towards a Rights-Based Approach to Mobility in the City
Given the spatial and economic inequalities inherent to South African towns and cities, which have been exacerbated by recent waves of urbanisation, this article aims to situate the provision of public transport in South Africa within a rights-based framework. Relying upon urban theory on the 'right to the city', we illustrate how public transport, while not the subject of an independent constitutional right, is central to accessing the objects o…
Law, rights, space and sexual citizenship in South Africa
This article considers the legal and spatial dimensions of urban sexual citizenship in South Africa. It reflects upon the manner in which legal and spatial regulation of sex evokes the private/public dichotomy and upholds an essentially heteronormative conception of sexual citizenship, before evaluating rights-based strategies that have thus far been employed in attempts to resist this. Thereafter, it argues for amalgamating these strategies unde…
Socio-economic Rights Adjudication and Democratic Urban Governance
VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee , Seite 12 - 34
Where is the periphery even? Capturing urban marginality in South African human rights law
This article questions the usefulness of the notion of an ‘urban periphery’ for efforts to capture and ameliorate urban marginalisation and exclusion through human rights-based litigation. Focusing on South Africa’s Gauteng City Region, the article argues that the notion of an urban periphery fails to capture the nuances of marginal urban life and the interests of poor, marginalised urban residents in accessing the city. In the specific context o…
A Year of Living Dangerously? Urban Assertiveness, Cooperative Governance and the First Year of Three Coalition-Led Metropolitan Municipalities in South Africa
South African cities enjoy significant constitutional autonomy and financial independence, meaning that they are well-placed to assert themselves against national and provincial governments, especially in situations of political discordance between different levels of government. This article considers the first year of multi-party coalition-led opposition governance in three South African cities, in attempting to better understand the relationsh…
Out of the shadows
This article aims to show the need for a clearer wall between political parties and state institutions in South Africa. The focus is on local government level where, it is argued, the absence of a dividing line between legislative and executive functions exacerbates the anti-democratic effects of a party/state conflation. The usurpation of local governance functions by unaccountable party-political structures is argued to frustrate urban autonomy…
Anatomy of a Crisis
Balancing Socio-economic Rights
In the context of a stand-off between housing rights advocates and the South African government over the appropriate way to safeguard the right to health in the country's urban informal settlements during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, this article reflects on some of the strengths and weaknesses of the local understanding of human rights. It argues for a holistic understanding of interdependent rights that allows for a reconciliation o…
Urbanizing Human Rights Law
This article considers ways in which human rights law ought to respond to a growingly urban global order of blurred private—corporate—and state power. Fragmented and dispersed power comes together, in different configurations of public and private, in the cities and towns of the world. For this reason, local government presents the appropriate scale at which to re-conceptualize the operation of international human rights norms, also against priva…
Towards a Right to the City
This article illustrates the transformative potential of guaranteeing justiciable socio-economic rights in domestic law, by engaging with the judicial vindication, over nearly a quarter-century, of the right to housing in the South African Constitution. Initial assessments of housing rights litigation in the country suggested that, while the right provided temporary protection against eviction and could provide temporary relief in housing emergen…
Corporate power, urban governance and urban law
Political science (32 works) · Law (30 works) · Legal Issues in South Africa (27 works) · Sociology (23 works) · Human rights (17 works) · Human Rights and Development (15 works) · Law (15 works) · Politics (15 works) · Economics (14 works) · Law and economics (11 works)