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On 10 December 2020, the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, held its annual graduation ceremony on International Human Rights Day. It was the first virtual human rights graduation ceremony due to COVID-19. The Centre awarded its annual Vera Chirwa Prize to two alumni (Solomon Dersso and Benyam Mezmur) for their role in contributing to the African Union’s human rights bodies both as members and chairpersons.
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The Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, takes great pleasure in congratulating Dianah Msipa on her appointment by the Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities onto a team of experts working on the proposed African Union (AU) Convention on Violence against Women and Children.
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In 2017, the Assembly of the African Union adopted the “African Union Master Roadmap of Practical Steps to Silencing the Guns in Africa by 2020”. The Silencing the Guns campaign is part of the broader vision of Agenda 2063 with the goal of achieving the ‘Africa We Want’. It aims to ensure a prosperous, integrated and peaceful Africa with inclusive and sustainable development. In 2020, as part of the practical steps, the African Union has kicked off the Silencing the Guns campaign, targeting its member states as they are the primary duty-bearers to ensure peace and security, and the realisation of human rights within their respective jurisdictions and beyond.
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On 23 July 2020, the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, in collaboration with the University of Ghana and the University of Nairobi, hosted the first online Julius Osega Memorial Lecture. The theme of this year’s lecture was Governance and human rights in Africa.
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The Centre for Human Rights' Human Rights and Democratisation class of 2020 take pleasure in inviting you to a Webinar on the Implication of armed conflict on women and the need for a ceasefire in Cameroon
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The Centre for Human Rights, Human Rights and Democratisation class of 2020 take pleasure in inviting you to a Webinar on the Relevance of The African Union's "Silencing the Guns" Campaign for African Civil Society
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The Centre for Human Rights' Human Rights and Democratisation class of 2020 take pleasure in inviting you to a Webinar on "Silencing the Guns" - A focus on child soldiers and women in conflict.
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The Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, together with the Sex Workers Education & Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) and Sisonke is deeply concerned about the ongoing discrimination against sex workers in South Africa in response to the COVID-19 crisis and calls on the government to take urgent measures to extend its COVID-19 palliative measures to sex workers in need.
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Recently, three graduates of the Master’s in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa (HRDA) programme, presented by the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, were appointed to positions in which they are able to apply the theory of democratisation and human rights to make a difference in two African states, Namibia and Uganda.
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The Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa, is calling for applications for the Master's degree (LLM/MPhil) in Human Rights and Democratisation (HRDA) for the Class of 2021. This prestigious degree is presented by the Centre in partnership with 12 leading African universities.The programme forms part of the Global Campus of Human Rights, with Pretoria as the hub of the African regional programme.
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The Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa, is calling for applications for the Master's degree (LLM/MPhil) in Disability Rights in Africa (DRIA) for the Class of 2021. The DRIA programme was launched in 2018 and is the first master’s degree programme in Africa focusing specifically on the rights of persons with disabilities in Africa.
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The Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa, is calling for applications for the Master's degree (LLM/MPhil) in Sexual & Reproductive Rights in Africa (SRRA) for the Class of 2021. The SRRA degree is a unique degree, offered as a blended learning programme, to which 15 individuals from African countries are admitted.
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The Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa, is calling for applications for the Master's degree (LLM) in International Trade and Investment Law in Africa (TILA) for the Class of 2021. The TILA degree is a unique programme to which 25 to 30 individuals from African countries with a degree allowing access to the legal profession (e.g. LLB or licence en Droit) and preferably experience in the field of trade and investment law are admitted.
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COVID-19: Welcoming Ceremony Master's Programmes postponed
As South Africa faces the locally expanding coronavirus epidemic, the University of Pretoria’s (UP) executive management team has decided to postpone contact classes and to reschedule the academic calendar.
Therefore, the welcoming ceremony, scheduled for 20 March 2020, is postponed. Details regarding the rescheduling of the ceremony will be communicated via the Centre's website and social media channels in due course.
We urge our students, staff, friends and colleagues to stay safe as we collectively turn the tide against this pandemic.
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On 6 February 2020, the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria (UP), collaborated with Belgian artist Koen Vanmechelen to host the second African edition of Cosmocafe. The Cosmocafe concept is part of the Human Rights Pavilion project conceived by Vanmechelen. It entails real conversations on human rights issues, referred to as SoTO Dialogues (Survival of the Other), that discusses the possibility of a universal human rights concept and the role of human rights in development. Previously, Cosmocafes have been held in 19 locations worldwide including Harare, Zimbabwe.
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On 23 and 24 January 2020, the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, convened a colloquium on developing responses to the persistence of unsafe abortion in the African region. The colloquium was convened by the Centre’s Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Africa (SRRA) programme. The focus of the colloquium was two-fold: critically exploring laws, policies and practices that serve as barriers to access to safe abortion in the African region; and suggesting reforms to overcome the barriers in ways that respect, protect, promote and fulfil women’s human rights.
Centre director addresses contemporary challenges to the African Union human rights system in Rwanda
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Professor Frans Viljoen, Director of the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, on August 2019 delivered a public lecture in Kigali, Rwanda, on the contemporary challenges that the African Union human rights system faces.
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This video is part of an advocacy project undertaken by HRDA students of the 2018 Advocacy Clinic Group at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. It forms part of an online campaign on the rights of intersex persons. The video captures the incredible life story of Dimakatso Sebidi, who is intersex and seeks to create awareness on intersex persons and their daily life experiences and challenges Intersex persons exist and have rights just like you and I. Join the #IAmIntersex campaign on Twitter and spread the word!
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Students on the Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa (HRDA) programme at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, recently visited the African human rights icon Dr Vera Chirwa.
On 15 April 2018, Professor Frans Viljoen (Director), Johannes Buabeng-Baidoo (HRDA Programme Coordinator) and three students on the HRDA programme (Hawi Asfaw fromEthiopia, Reshoketswe Mapokgole from South Africa and Urerimam Raymond Shamaki from Nigeria), paid a courtesy visit to the home of Dr Vera Mlangazua Chirwa in commemoration of her selfless service to human rights in Africa as well as her support to the Centre.
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On Friday 16 March 2018 the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria welcomed the 2018 cohort of its Master’s degree students. The welcoming ceremony included the launch of the highly anticipated Alumni Diaries, a colourful chronicle of the journey and impact of the Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa (HRDA) programme and its alumni from its inception in 2000 until 2017.
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The Centre for Human Rights congratulates Dr Innocent Maja on his recent appointment as Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of Zimbabwe effective from 1 April 2018 and running for a period of four years.
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The Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria hosted a public lecture by renowned legal scholar Professor Makau Mutua on 12 February 2018. Prof Mutua is a distinguished Professor at the Floyd H. and Hilda L. Hurst Faculty Scholar at the State University of New York Buffalo Law School. The public lecture raised the question whether the age of human rights is over. It was premised on the central argument that while human rights and the use of the ‘language of rights’ have been a phenomenal success, it has lost the ability to coalesce action against human rights atrocities. Unfortunately, no new discourses have emerged to take the place of human rights. What is needed is a new moral language to fill the vacuum left by human rights.
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The Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria cordially invites you to a Public Lecture under the theme - "Is the age for human rights over?"
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More than 50 Master’s graduates
At the University of Pretoria's graduation ceremony on 8 December more than 50 students graduated with a Master's degree from the following Master's programmes organised by the Centre for Human Rights:
- LLM International Trade and Investment Law in Africa (TILA) (23 students graduating; two with distinction)
- LLM/MPhil Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa (HRDA) (organised in collaboration with 13 partner universities across the African continent; 27 students graduating, a record number of eight students with distinction)
- LLM/MPhil Multidisciplinary Human Rights (two students graduating)
- LLM/ MPhil Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Africa (one student graduating)
- Master’s by research (one student graduating)
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The Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria cordially invites you to its Master’s degree graduation ceremony. This graduation ceremony is hosted annually on or around 10 December to celebrate International Human Rights Day.
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The Global Campus Human Rights Week will be held during the week from 4 to 9 December 2017 in Pretoria, South Africa. The events will feature a film screening and discussion on African cinema and human rights, meetings of institutional and governance structures of the Global Campus, a visual / performance art and panel discussion on the rights of women and LGBTIQ persons, a multi-disciplinary conference on contemporary and future challenges to democracy worldwide and the graduation of the 18th cohort of students on the Master’s degree programme in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa. The event is organised by the Global Campus of Human Rights in partnership with the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria. The conference is realised thanks to the European Union.
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In the context of the Global Campus of Human Rights’ Exchange of Lecturers, a representative of the Master’s Programme in Human Rights & Democratisation in Africa (HRDA), Mr Tshepo Madlingozi, together with a representative of the European Regional Master’s Programme in Democracy and Human Rights in South East Europe (ERMA), Dr Iavor Rangelov, hosted joint lectures on the theme of ''Comparative Transitional Justice: Retributive and Restorative Approaches” on 29 and 30 June 2017 at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, replicating the lecture in Sarajevo at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of the University of Sarajevo on 16 and 17 May 2017.
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In the framework of the Global Campus Exchange of Lecturers, the Master’s Programme in Human Rights & Democratisation in Africa (HRDA) together with the European Regional Master’s Programme in Democracy and Human Rights in South East Europe (ERMA) will host the joint lecture ''Comparative Transitional Justice: Retributive and Restorative Approaches '', which will take place on 29 and 30 June 2017 at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, replicating the lecture in Sarajevo at the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies of the University of Sarajevo on 16 and 17 May 2017.
