fbpx

During 2016, the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria is celebrating its 30th anniversary, coinciding with the entry into force of the most important human rights treaty on the continent, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. This year is also the African Union’s Year of Human Rights (with a focus on women’s rights) as well as the 20th anniversary of the South African Constitution.

Over the past 30 years, the Centre’s academic programmes, projects and partnerships have focused on the African regional human rights system, with the African Charter at its core. The Master’s programme in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa, in particular, with its 14 partner faculties across the continent, and 456 graduates around the continent and beyond, has seen a convergence between the agendas of the Centre and the African human rights system.

Celebratory events

A number of special celebratory events have taken place through the course of the year. These included the welcoming ceremonyfor the students on the Master’s degree in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa(with political commentator Eusebius McKaiser as guest speaker), a Human Rights Day discussion forum that reflected on the Constitutional Court term of Justice Johann van der Westhuizen, a Africa Day discussion forum on the South African Constitution at 20, the presentation of the 8th Nelson Mandela World Human Rights Moot Court Competitionto honour Nelson Mandela on his birthday, in Geneva, a discussion forumon the African Human Rights Court at 10, and a breakfast discussionon electoral reform in South Africa. The Centre also presented the 25th edition of the African Human Rights Moot Court Competitionin Pretoria, South Africa as well as the Fourth African Disability Rights Moot Court Competition. Another highlight during the year was the successful presentation of the historic first ever conference on albinism in Africa, which focused on a call to action to end rights abuses against persons with albinism.

To conclude the celebrations, the Centre is hosting a Colloquium on the theme ‘30/30: How far have we come; where do we go from here’ on 8 December 2016, which is followed by a gala dinner for its students, alumni, donors, staff, colleagues and friends. The 30-year anniversary celebrations ends on a high note on 9 December 2016 at the Centre’s special graduation ceremony, which coincides annually with International Human Rights Day. Fifty-three students from the Centre eceive their Master’s degrees in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa, International Trade and Investment Law in Africa, Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Africa and Multidisciplinary Human Rights, while five doctoral candidates receive their LLD degrees.

History of the Centre for Human Rights

The Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, was founded in 1986 by a small group of academics at the Faculty of Law in the wake of an epoch-making conference reflecting on the possibilities of a Bill of Rights – and a culture of true constitutionalism more broadly – for a post-apartheid South Africa. A direct consequence of the conference was the establishment of the Centre for Human Rights Studies (as it was then called) with Prof Johann van der Westhuizen (now retired Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa) as its first director for the period 1986 to 1998. The purpose of the Centre was the promotion of the idea of human rights, both in an academic and popular way. The two academics who succeeded Prof van der Westhuizen are Prof Christof Heyns (Director from 1999 to 2006) and Prof Frans Viljoen (current Director from 2007), who contributed in the further evolution of the Centre for Human Rights.

During the tumultuous late 1980s, and amidst a state of emergency in South Africa, the Centre commissioned the artist Braam ‘Kitchenboy’ Kruger (1950-2008), to create an artwork to be used as a promotional poster for the Centre’s upcoming 1989 conference on ‘A new jurisprudence for a future South Africa’. The poster featured a painting of Anna Mogale, Kruger’s domestic worker at the time, representing a black Justitia: her gaze unapologetically directed at the viewer, brandishing a bare breast and holding the scales of justice. A number of apartheid symbols including the ‘Wit Wolf’, South African Police ambush vehicles (Casspirs), military helmets, a rugby ball and smoke on the horizon can be seen, signifying the horrors of apartheid. The poster caused profound shock and outrage among pro-apartheid whites in a time when the University of Pretoria was known for its conservatism. The newspaper Die Afrikaner published an article describing the reaction of (white) prospective parents to the painting claiming that they would not send their children to the University of Pretoria as a result of the poster and the work of the Centre towards a non-racist society.

Today, thirty years later, the Centre functions as an academic department and a non-governmental organisation, living up to the ideals of being active on the academic landscape, on the one hand, and playing a role as a civil society organisation that operates on domestic, regional and international platforms, on the other. After the birth of a new democracy in South Africa, the focus of the Centre shifted to support the realisation of human rights on a continental level. Currently, the Centre works towards human rights education in Africa, a greater awareness of human rights, the wide dissemination of publications on human rights in Africa, and the improvement of the rights of women, people living with HIV, indigenous peoples, sexual minorities, people with disabilities and other disadvantaged or marginalised persons or groups across Africa. In 2006 the Centre was awarded the UNESCO Prize for Human Rights Education and in 2012 the African Union Human Rights Prize.

To read more about the work of the Centre for Human Rights, please visit :www.chr.up.ac.za

For more information, please contact:

Ms Yolanda Booyzen
Communications and Marketing Manager
Centre for Human Rights
University of Pretoria
Tel: +27 (0) 12 420-4512
Email: yolanda.booyzen@up.ac.za

Newsletter

 Subscribe to our newsletter