Editorial

This edition contains an interesting mixture of contributions from various parts of the world and from the perspective of various disciplines of the law.o Dr. Timothy I Akomolede of the Olabisi Onabanjo University in Nigeria highlights a number of legal and socio-economic problems that have been engendered by the emergence of electronic commerce, especially in developing countries such as Nigeria.  &nbsp

Editorial

Professor Dana van der Merwe of the University of South Africa (UNISA) delves into the impact of the information era on the law, drawing distinctions with the aid of legal philosophy between data, information and intelligence. o    In similar vein Dr Tanya du Plessis of the University of Johannesburg investigates the impact of information and communication technology on the practice of law and knowledge management in law firms. o    Professor Anneliese Roos of UNISA follows with an in-depth and comparative exposition of statutory data protection with specific reference to the legislation of New Zealand, illustrating important disadvantages for participants in the information technology arena in South Africa

Editorial

In this first of at least three editions planned for 2006, the focus is on environmental law:  Professor Verschuuren of Tilburg University attributes the high moral value of the principles of environmental law to the ideal of sustainable development.    Advocate Paschke and Professor Glazewski of Cape Town offers strong arguments against allowing retrospective environmental authorisation as militating against the purposes of environmental assessment.    &nbsp

Editorial

 This issue deals with a selection of topics of environmental law. As it should be clear from the short tribute written by Margaret Beukes, the issue is devoted to Professor Elmien Bray, for many years a force in the emergence of South African environmental law. Jonathan Verschuuren of Tilburg University expertly comments on the Dutch Crisis and Recovery Act, showing clearly why it is such a controversial piece of legislation: balancing economic recovery with sustainable development, sound principles of law, justice and crisis management is shown to be a very hard result to achieve by means of legislation.  &nbsp

Editorial

In this issue the nexus between labour relations and electronic privacy, affirmative action in India, intercountry adoption of children, the award of costs in public interest litigation and the legal uncertainties surrounding liability for injuries of student actors are the themes of the contributions.    &nbsp

Regte, gesag en waardes

Rights, authority and valuesIn view of Johan van der Vyver's immense contribution to the clarification of the meaning of legal concepts, the establishment of terminology, the analysis of doctrines and the explanation of the foundations of matters, it is considered appropriate in this article to revisit a question which has occupied jurists since time immemorial, namely what a right might be. This question cannot be addressed without dealing with the context in which it stands. Therefore the fa te of the doctrine of subjective rights is firstly traced, after which the phenomena of human rights and fundamental rights are discussed Following these analyses, the question whether a single, comprehensive concept of right is viable is considered. In this context the need for the legal scholar to thoroughly consider the origin or justification for the existence of government authority is motivated. It seems as though unanimity about a concept o f right at anything beyond a relatively superficial, mechanical level is not really possible, but that a meaningful scholarly discourse on the matter is possible, at least among scholars who acknowledge the determining role of unverifiable presuppositions in the practice of scholarship. Finally it is argued that there is a connection between the values of the Constitution, the exercise of government authority and the development of a South African concept of right

Editorial

This first issue of 2007 covers a refreshing spectrum of legal disciplines ranging from cultural and linguistic issues, to the onus of proof in delict, the censorship debate and research methodology. Professor Elmene Bray of the University of South Africa analyses the complexities of the recent judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeal in a case involving the sensitive issue of the medium of instruction in public schools in South Africa.    &nbsp

Editorial

The contributions of this issue all relate to the growing impact of globalization on divergent disciplines of the law such as labour law, public international law, international commercial law and electoral law.  Globalization is a theme that will not recede in the time to come and many future contributions to P E R can be expected to address it from different perspectives.    &nbsp

Editorial

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Editorial

Issues of environmental law in the South African context once more characterise this final issue of 2006.   Couzens and Dent, both from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, extensively discuss shortcomings that occurred in the process of authorization of the building of a dam that will have implications for some ecosystems in the Kruger National Park.  Alternative dispute resolution, as provided for in the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA) emerges as a likely means for the resolution of the difficulties and under the creative title "Finding NEMA", the authors express the hope that much will in future be learnt from the errors that occurred in this case.    &nbsp