Regional frameworks for safeguarding children: The role of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child

This article discusses the safeguarding movement in the context of child protection. After providing it’s key principles and precepts, the relevant provisions of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child which link to safeguarding are stipulated, as well as a brief description given of the mandate of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. Some aspects of the practical working methods of the Committee are thereafter considered. With reference to the Committee’s interface with non-governmental organisations, some proposals concerning the Committee and the safeguarding movement are put forward

The jurisdiction of the Regional Courts Amendment Act, 2008: some implications for child law and divorce jurisdiction

The promulgation of the Jurisdiction of the Regional Courts Amendment Act, 31 of 2008 (hereafter the JRCAA) in 62 large urban magisterial districts on 9 August 2010 (Women's Day) heralds a potentially drastic transformation of the practice of civil procedure in South Africa. This article focuses on its implications for family law and, especially, child law proceedings. The various dimensions of jurisdictional reform are first explained with reference to the Children's Act 38 of 2005 and the JRCAA, whereafter their import is analysed. It will be questioned whether the provisions of the JRCAA were drafted with sufficient care, and why no reference was made to the provisions of the Children's Act 38 of 2005. The potential difficulties occasioned by the new jurisdictional rules will be described. In conclusion, comments are made about the positive and less positive aspects of the JRCAA, and suggestions for reform are provided.Department of HE and Training approved lis

Gravitational Atoms

Particles in a yet unexplored dark sector with sufficiently large mass and small gauge coupling may form purely gravitational atoms (quantum gravitational bound states) with a rich phenomenology. In particular, we investigate the possibility of having an observable signal of gravitational waves or ultra high energy cosmic rays from the decay of gravitational atoms. We show that if ordinary Einstein gravity holds up to the Planck scale, then, within the $\Lambda \text{CDM}$ model, the frequency of the gravitational wave signal produced by the decays is always higher than $10^{13} \, \text{Hz}$. An observable signal of gravitational waves with smaller frequency from such decays, in addition to probing near Planckian dark physics, would also imply a departure from Einstein gravity near the Planck scale or an early epoch of non-standard cosmology. As an example, we consider an early universe cosmology with a matter-dominated phase, violating our assumption that the universe is radiation dominated after reheating, which gives a signal in an interesting frequency range for near Planckian bound states. We also show how gravitational atoms arise in the minimal PIDM scenario and compute their gravitational wave signature.Comment: 31 pages, 7 figure