South Africa

One of the most important recent South African judgments on environmental law has delivered by the high court in Gauteng province. The case concerns a region of SA where high levels of air pollution risk the health of all the people living there. This is well-known to the government, but very little has been done about it. Now, environmental organisations have challenged the government’s inertia, and have won a major victory, with the court declaring that constitutional rights were breached by the failure to act.

Is mandatory workplace vaccination constitutional? Is it even a fair workplace practice? These are questions being asked in many jurisdictions as employers try to ensure safe work environments. The issue is also beginning to filter into the court system, as those who do not want to be vaccinated challenge employers who have made vaccination mandatory.

Statelessness, once a ‘forgotten human rights crisis’, has been put at the forefront of a global agenda with the UN’s #Ibelong campaign. Among the most tragic victims of statelessness are children found abandoned in a state and who, in most Southern African states, would as a result never have any nationality. Condemned to a life in a limbo that extends even to their adult years, and that may even be inherited by their children, these stateless persons illustrate how essential the right to nationality is to every person.