Investor-state arbitration and SA's bilateral investment treaty policy framework review

Mandela Institute Working paper.Contribution to the DTI's review of South Africa’s bilateral investment treaty (BIT) policy framework

Public interest litigation in South Africa: special issue introduction

Intro: The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 has been aptly termed a transformative one, a framework for the large-scale transformation of the South African society through law. Reflecting in 2011 on nearly two decades of legal reform in South Africa, much preceded by public interest litigation, we can conclude that many changes have indeed occurred to much (but not all) of the doctrine of the law. And yet, the desired societal transformation has not occurred. Levels of inequality are increasing and the effect, positive or negative, of governance remains debated. This SAJHR Special Issue aims to recover the impetus of a transformative constitutional project through attention, not to changes in the doctrine of the law, but rather to the organisational modes of human rights advocacy and litigation, focusing on one of these modes – public interest litigation

The administration of justice

In the 2004 chapter on the Administration of Justice, we took the unusual step of criticising Juta, the publisher of the Annual Survey (at 823-6). We did so because we considered that Juta had behaved improperly in publishing a judgment critical of Jeremy Gauntlett SC but refusing his request to record that the Cape Bar Council had exonerated him of improper conduct. The details of the saga are fully recorded in last year's contribution and need not be repeated. As the publisher of the Annual Survey, Juta asserted a right to respond to the criticism levelled at it (2004 Annual Survey 845). Indeed, it appropriated an entire printed page to do so. Regrettably, we believe that Juta has compounded its error and that its comments cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged. In essence, Juta makes three points. First, the judgment on leave to appeal was reported because it 'contradicted a previous assumption that a dissenting judgment in the court a quo meant that leave to appeal would be granted as a matter of course' (ibid). Second, the South African Law Reports contains only such editorial comment as may be necessary to elucidate the published judgments. Third, '[i]t is not incumbent upon the publishers of law reports to annotate the reports in order to vindicate any of the persons who from time to time draw adverse comment from presiding judges' (ibid). None of these arguments withstand scrutiny

South Africa’s COVID-19 Tracing Database: Risks and rewards of which doctors should be aware

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, South Africa (SA) has established a Tracing Database, collecting both aggregated and individualised mobility and locational data on COVID-19 cases and their contacts. There are compelling public health reasons for this development, since the database has the potential to assist with policy formulation and with contact tracing. While potentially demonstrating the rapid facilitation through technology of an important public service, the Tracing Database does, however, infringe immediately upon constitutional rights to privacy and heightens the implications of ethical choices facing medical professionals. The medical community should be aware of this surveillance innovation and the risks and rewards it raises. To deal with some of these risks, including the potential for temporary rights- infringing measures to become permanent, there are significant safeguards designed into the Tracing Database, including a strict duration requirement and reporting to a designated judge. African states including SA should monitor this form of contact tracing closely, and also encourage knowledge-sharing among cross-sectoral interventions such as the Tracing Database in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic

Assimilation of healthy and indulgent impressions from labelling influences fullness but not intake or sensory experience

Background: Recent evidence suggests that products believed to be healthy may be over-consumed relative to believed indulgent or highly caloric products. The extent to which these effects relate to expectations from labelling, oral experience or assimilation of expectations is unclear. Over two experiments, we tested the hypotheses that healthy and indulgent information could be assimilated by oral experience of beverages and influence sensory evaluation, expected satiety, satiation and subsequent appetite. Additionally, we explored how expectation-experience congruency influenced these factors. Results: Results supported some assimilation of healthiness and indulgent ratings—study 1 showed that indulgent ratings enhanced by the indulgent label persisted post-tasting, and this resulted in increased fullness ratings. In study 2, congruency of healthy labels and oral experience promoted enhanced healthiness ratings. These healthiness and indulgent beliefs did not influence sensory analysis or intake—these were dictated by the products themselves. Healthy labels, but not experience, were associated with decreased expected satiety. Conclusions: Overall labels generated expectations, and some assimilation where there were congruencies between expectation and experience, but oral experience tended to override initial expectations to determine ultimate sensory evaluations and intake. Familiarity with the sensory properties of the test beverages may have resulted in the use of prior knowledge, rather than the label information, to guide evaluations and behaviour

Irish-American Identity Formation in Savannah, Georgia: Intersections of the Global and the Local

A distinctive Irish-American community has survived in Savannah, Georgia since the early 1800s. In this paper, I discuss and analyze results of ethnographic, oral history, and archival research which revealed ongoing processes of Irish-American identity formation among members of Savannah’s historic Irish-American community. Living in Irish dominated neighborhoods, the Catholic Church, attending parochial schools, and the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade had fostered a sense of shared Irish identity anchored in daily life and interactions for many who grew up in Savannah. Beginning in the 1980s, a number of new Irish rituals and organizations were created, and the St. Patrick’s Day Parade grew to be one of the largest in the country, attracting close to half a million visitors. I propose that a complex interplay of global and local models of Irishness have shaped these processes of identity formation and change