scholarly journals South African Private Security Contractors Active in Armed Conflicts: Citizenship, Prosecution and the Right to Work

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 70
Author(s):  
Shannon Bosch ◽  
Marelie Maritz
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
South African ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
The South ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Right ◽  
Security Contractors

South Africa has adopted two pieces of legislation since 1998 aimed at restricting one of the fastest growing sectors of the global economy: the private security industry. Not only is this legislation completely unique, but it appears wholly at odds with international opinion. In this article we place private security contractors (PSCs) under the microscope of international law, exploring the role they play in armed conflicts, and the status afforded them by international humanitarian law (IHL). We address the issue of prohibited mercenarism, questioning whether PSCs should be categorised as mercenaries. We then shift our focus to the South African legislation and discuss the ambit of its application as compared with international law obligations to outlaw mercenaries. We discuss the likelihood of successful prosecution of PSCs, and the potential penalties that PSCs might face in terms of the South African legislation. Lastly we consider the constitutional challenges which might emerge as this legislation, and a proposed amendment to the South African Citizenship Act threaten the constitutionally protected rights of South African PSCs to practise a profession and enjoy citizenship.

An analysis of the right of Muslim adopted children to inherit from their deceased parents in terms of the law of succession: A South African case study

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-73
Author(s):  
Muneer Abduroaf
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Adopted Children ◽  
The South ◽  
Legal Context ◽  
Muslim Children ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Right ◽  
Law Of Succession

This paper analyses the right of Muslim adopted children to inherit from their deceased parents in terms of the laws of succession within the South African legal context. The status of adoption in South African and Islamic law is looked at first by way of an introduction. This is followed by looking at the rights of adopted Muslim children to inherit from their deceased parents (biological and adoptive) in terms of the South African and Islamic laws of intestate (compulsory) and then testate (optional) succession.1 The paper further looks at the possibility of applying relevant Islamic law of succession provisions applicable to enable adopted Muslim children to inherit from the estate of their deceased biological parents within the South African legal framework. The paper concludes with an analysis of the findings and makes a recommendation.

scholarly journals ARMED CONFLICT IN THE SOUTH-EAST OF UKRAINE: LEGAL QUALIFI-CATIONS AND CONSEQUENCES

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 394-412
Author(s):  
Petr P. Kremnev
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Legal Analysis ◽  
The South ◽  
Legal Doctrine ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Legal Consequences

Unconstitutional change of power in Ukraine as a result of the "Maidan revolution" in February 2014, with the subsequent power grab by Ukrainian radicals of local authorities under nationalist slogans, led to the establishment of control over parts of the territory of Donetsk and Lugansk regions by Donbass militias, and then to the ongoing fighting between the armed formations of the latter with units of the regular armed forces of Ukraine. The purpose of this publication is to establish the form of the armed conflict and its legal consequences from the standpoint of current international law, which has not yet found proper legal analysis and coverage in either domestic or foreign (including Ukrainian) legal doctrinе. In official statements and legislative acts of Ukraine, this conflict is declared as a "state of war with Russia", "aggression of Russia", and the Ukrainian doctrine of international law almost unanimously declares the need to apply to the conflict the norms of international humanitarian law and qualifies it as an international armed conflict. In this publication, on the basis of the analysis of existing international legal norms and legal doctrine, the qualification of existing forms of armed conflicts is carried out: war, international armed conflict, non-international armed conflict, internationalized armed conflict. This examines the legal consequences (or otherwise the obligations of the parties to the conflict) that are caused by each form of such armed conflict, that is concealed and ignored by the Ukrainian side. On the basis of the theoretical and legal analysis of the UN Charter, the relevant provisions of the Geneva conventions on the protection of victims of war of 1949 and Additional protocols I and II of 1977, the author qualifies the situation in the South-East of Ukraine as a non-international armed conflict and the obligation to comply with applicable legal norms by all parties to the conflict. At the same time, the author comes to the conclusion about the insolvency of the claims about the applicability of the rules governing other mentioned forms of armed conflicts.

scholarly journals The Human Right to Information and Transparency

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Klaaren
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
South African ◽  
Final Section ◽  
The South ◽  
Human Right ◽  
Current State ◽  
African Perspective ◽  
Right To Information ◽  
The Right ◽  
Conceptual Foundations

The argument for the recognition of the right to information in international law has continued to strengthen since the South African Constitutional Court’s Certification decision. This paper examines the human right to information in international law and makes the argument that this human right is a significant vehicle for promoting transparency. In section 2, it makes some observations concerning the conceptual foundations of the right to information and the right’s relationship to the broader concept of transparency. Section 3 notes the current state of the human right to information in international law doing so from an African perspective. The final section presents a set of questions for further consideration (noting some linkages with South African post- apartheid jurisprudence) as well as some concluding observations, organized in conceptual terms based on the right of information.

scholarly journals A HEXAGON RIGHT: THE SIX DIMENSIONS OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN RIGHT TO BASIC EDUCATION

Obiter ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chiedza Simbo
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Secondary School ◽  
International Law ◽  
South African ◽  
Basic Education ◽  
The South ◽  
Six Dimensions ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Right ◽  
Primary And Secondary School

Notwithstanding the enactment of the South African Constitution in 1996, 23 years later, the need to determine the scope and content of the right to basic education has been a battlefield for authors. Whilst authors battle, complaints are made about the South African government charging school fees for basic education, decreasing pass thresholds for matriculants, students learning in dilapidated classrooms, non-delivery of text books, unqualified teachers and many complaints reminiscent of a failing basic education system. Despite citizen attempts to take the government to court for specific violations relating to the provision of basic education, in the absence of a law of general application specifically unpacking the scope and content of the right to basic education in South Africa, an ultimate question remains, what is the scope and content of the right to basic education for the purposes of its implementation in South Africa? This paper attempts to determine the scope and content of section 29(1)(a) using an international law approach. After engaging the provisions of international law as well as writings by other authors, the conclusion is that, in relation to its scope and content, section 29(1)(a) is a hexagon right that is, a right comprising of six interrelated dimensions. The six dimensions are that, the right to basic education includes primary and secondary school attendance, the right to basic education includes compulsory and free attendance of both primary and secondary school and the right to basic education is an unqualified right. Further, the right to basic education is a minimum core content of the right to education, the right to basic education must be available, accessible, acceptable and adaptable and the quality standard of the right to basic education is explained by the World Declaration on Basic Education for All, 1990.

scholarly journals An Analysis of the Right of a Muslim Child Born Out of Wedlock to Inherit from His or Her Deceased Parent in terms of the Law of Succession: A South African Case Study

Obiter ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 126-135
Author(s):  
Muneer Abduroaf
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
The South ◽  
The Status ◽  
African Context ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right ◽  
Law Of Succession

This article analyses the right of a Muslim child born out of wedlock to inherit from his or her deceased parent in terms of the law of succession within the South African context. The status of the child in the South African and Islamic law of intestate succession is first investigated. Thereafter, the status of the child in the South African and Islamic law of testate succession is discussed. The article further looks at the possibility of applying the Islamic law of succession provisions concerning a Muslim child born out of wedlock to the distribution of a deceased estate within the South African legal framework. The article concludes with an analysis of the findings and makes recommendations.

Contingencies of Context

2021 ◽  
pp. 319-337
Author(s):  
Emma Stone Mackinnon
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
National Liberation ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
The Status ◽  
Project Tracing ◽  
A Site

This chapter considers the presence of anticolonial political thought in and as international law, and in particular the legacies of the Algerian Revolution for the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions. The Additional Protocols extended to wars of national liberation the status of international armed conflicts, a move often explained as a straightforward product of context: an effort to expand the reach of humanitarian law to conflicts like those in Algeria and Vietnam. Returning to the legal arguments of the Algerian revolutionaries, however, reveals more complex arguments about what made the conflict international. Rather than straightforwardly nationalist, those arguments entailed robust conceptions of sovereignty, aggression, and the nature of decolonisation as a legal project. Tracing those arguments through the deliberations over the Additional Protocols, the chapter shows how, rather than simply reflecting its context, law operates as a site of historical meaning-making to adjudicate the past’s significance.

Assistance to the civilian population: the development and present state of international humanitarian law

1992 ◽  
Vol 32 (288) ◽  
pp. 249-263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denise Plattner
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Present State ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Civilian Population ◽  
The Right

Bearing in mind the plethora of rules applicable in time of war, jurists define international law rather elaborately as follows:“International humanitarian law applicable in armed conflict means international rules, established by treaties or custom, which are specifically intended to solve humanitarian problems directly arising from international or non-international armed conflicts and which, for humanitarian reasons, limit the right of Parties to a conflict to use the methods and means of warfare of their choice or protect persons and property that are, or may be, affected by conflict”.

scholarly journals Applicability of the rules of international humanitarian law to peacekeeping operations in regional crises

2021 ◽  
pp. 26-32
Author(s):  
Alexandru Cauia ◽  
◽  
Naif Jassim Alabduljabbar ◽  
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Peacekeeping Operations ◽  
Military Conflicts ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Subject

Reading the International Humanitarian Law, point of view of the status of subjects of Public International Law of the parties ist the only issue that involved in military conflicts matters so that they can be qualified as international or non-international, which depends directly on the volume of legal rules to be enforced and complied by the warring parties. Thus, members of peacekeeping operations conducted under the auspices of the UN, or with the participation of regional structures must strictly comply with the provisions of the rules of war throughout their actions in situations that may qualify as armed conflicts. Mechanisms and instruments for ensuring compliance with the rules of International Humanitarian Law by members of peacekeeping contingents shall be the subject of research in this article.

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