Magister Legum - LLM / Access to adequate housing is an important socio-economic right and is of central importance for the enjoyment of all rights. The right to access adequate housing is viewed as a fundamental human right and has been described in both International Law and by the South African courts as being essential to the dignity of human beings. Access to adequate housing thus plays an important part in ensuring human dignity for all persons. It is also one of the key elements needed to ensure that all persons have access to an adequate standard of living. Access to adequate housing further plays a vital role in maintaining and improving the lives of all people as it provides both security and shelter. In modern day South Africa, access to adequate housing is held in very high regard. This is evident in the recognition it has received in the National Development Plan as two of the fourteen outcomes of the plan are to ensure that “all people are and feel safe” and “sustainable human settlements and improved quality of household life.” The drafters of the South African Constitution recognised the importance of access to adequate housing as provision was made for the right to access adequate housing in the Final Constitution in section 26. In considering the report submitted by South Africa, the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural rights indicated (hereinafter referred to as the “Committee on ESCR”) the housing landscape in South Africa continues to be divided as a result of the past and that the apartheid spatial divide continues to dominate the landscape. Viljoen notes that despite numerous attempts to transform the housing regime from one which was grossly discriminatory to a welfare-orientated legal system that functions under the auspices of the rights and values entrenched in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa the poorest households in South Africa remain subject to not only a lack of access to housing but also intolerable housing conditions. He writes further that the judicial enforcement of the right to access adequate housing is a difficult, complex and multi-layered issue with which the courts have been grappling for some time. An examination of the housing rights jurisprudence reveals that housing rights and access to adequate housing has been one of the most fiercely contested and frequently litigated topics in the country. The jurisprudence also shows that housing is an area where much legislative, policy and infrastructure progress has been made.

Global economical crisis has set high expectations to national politics. Working issues are highly connected to many political principles and actions. This is why concentrating on the form and efficiency of interventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO) can be seen as a very current topic. In this study there are two case countries, Ar-gentina and Finland. In democratic point of view they have fairly similar paths in the field of labour and the activity concerning these issues has been quite noticeable in the past, even though they are in different stage of development.Work is seen as a human right and fair conditions of work are presented through impor-tant international covenants. The ideology of social justice, as presented by John Rawls, is introduced here as the concept is central to the work of the ILO. In order to under-stand the meaning of social justice to the functionality of the ILO and to get a clearer picture of organizational relations in the labour markets, the organizational theoretical approaches by Starbuck and Scherer are brought up. This is also done in order to under-stand whether an international organizational actor, within field that is still seen to be highly under the control of sovereign countries themselves, can work efficiently.There were no directly related former studies found concerning not only the work of national labour organizations but also of the ILO. The indicators are based on most gen-eral and central subjects covered by the International Labour Standards, provided by the ILO. Indicators used to measure the efforts of the countries to appreciate the contents of international covenants are: ratification of international conventions, national legislation and labour organizational structure. The ones used to measure the efficiency of the ILO interventions are: activity of the ILO in the national level, functionality of the complaint system and the number of complaints. By analysing the information found through the indicators is meant to find out if the ILO has had effective interventions to the labour markets of the case countries in 1990s and the early 21st century. The hypothesis is that concerning the developing countries the ILO has more flexibility and power to its inter-ventions, and in question of highly developed and generally democratic countries more challenges are met concerning how to keep the response system active and abreast.

This study is the first systematic global analysis of the impact of law on human rights, analyzing the impact of twenty-three constitution provisions and an international covenant on three measures of human rights behavior, over the period of 1976-1996. Three sets of constitutional provisions are analyzed, including 1) ten provisions for individual freedoms and due process rights, 2) nine provisions for elements of judicial independence and 3) four provisions that outline procedures for states of emergency. Additionally, the impact of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on actual human rights behavior is analyzed. Each of these areas of law are evaluated individually, in multiple models in which different elements vary. For example, some models control for democracy with different measures, others divide the data into the Cold War and post-Cold War eras, and some test constitutional indices. Finally, all provisions are simultaneously analyzed in integrated models. Provisions for fair and public trials are consistently shown to decrease the probability of abuse. An index of four freedoms (speech, religion, association, and assembly) decreases the probability of abuse somewhat consistently. Three of the provisions for judicial independence are most consistent in reducing the probability of abuse: the provisions for exclusive judicial authority, for the finality of judges' decisions, and banning exceptional courts. Two of four states of emergency provisions decrease abuse as international lawyers have argued: the provisions for legislative declaration of the emergency and the ban against dissolving the legislature during an emergency. However, two of the provisions are shown to hurt human rights practices: the duration and the derogation provisions. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not demonstrate a statistically significant impact. While the performance of the constitutional provisions is less than legal scholars would hope, their combined impact over time are shown to be quite large, relative to the impacts of other factors shown to affect human rights abuse.

Magister Legum - LLM

Social Economic Rights are included in the South African Constitution (the Constitution) as justiciable rights. This study critically examines the added benefits and implications for South Africa to ratify the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (OP-ICESCR). Explores some key laws, policies and case law which would give a clear picture as to where South Africa stands in its delivery of Social Economic Rights and discusses some of the key areas of difficulties in the implementation and enforcement of Social and Economic Rights in South Africa. / A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Dr Lilian Chenwi, Faculty of law, University of Western Cape, South Africa. / LLM Dissertation (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa -- University of Pretoria, 2009. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

In this thesis I examine the status of the rights recognised in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in New Zealand‘s domestic law. I contrast that status with the constitutional guarantees that Brazil, South Africa and Finland provide for these rights, and critique the principal objections made in New Zealand and elsewhere against them. I argue that greater domestic legal protection of economic, social and cultural rights is necessary and propose that they be incorporated into the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

In this thesis I examine the status of the rights recognised in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in New Zealand‘s domestic law. I contrast that status with the constitutional guarantees that Brazil, South Africa and Finland provide for these rights, and critique the principal objections made in New Zealand and elsewhere against them. I argue that greater domestic legal protection of economic, social and cultural rights is necessary and propose that they be incorporated into the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.

The interpretation of religious feeedom in European and international decision - making practice This diploma thesis focuses on the system of protection of religious freedoms in European and international legislation and explores its interpretation in the decision-making practice of the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee. In recent years, the protection of religious minorities has become a topical issue, giving rise to numerous international judicial decisions. The core of the thesis provides a comprehensive analysis of some of these decisions. The aim of the thesis is to examine the importance international judicial bodies attribute to the protection of religious freedoms in relation to the system of the protection of fundamental human rights. It also discusses conditions and situations in which the exercise of these fundamental rights can be limited without encroaching upon fundamental freedoms of an individual. The introduction provides a definition of the term religion and describes its interpretation in specialized literature. The second chapter looks at the historical development of the protection of religious freedoms, its individual components and the modern concept of religious freedom laid down by international treaties/conventions on human rights...

This work critically examines the justiciability of the Sudan model of constitutionalising socio-economic rights (SER) and the legal implications of this model. Discusses the following questions: (1) What is the scope and extent of the Sudan Bill of Rights? (2) What is the effect of section 27(3) on section 22 of the Sudan Interim National Constitution? (3) Does the Constitution provide for justiciable SER, if yes, can the South African model of rendering SER justiciable and their standard of review provide a useful guide to the Sudan? / Mini Dissertation (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2008. / A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Professor Julia Sloth-Nielsen of the Community Law Centre, University of the Western Cape / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:23:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernando de Almeida Prado Sampaio.pdf: 681628 bytes, checksum: 77d5273eea33cc70cdfc96063e83de58 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-09-17 / The objective of this study is to analyze the problem of the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of economic and social rights in Brazil considering the legal understanding of our Courts. The work is divided into five chapters, the second being related to the emergence and historical development of economic and social rights; the third showing the search for effectiveness and possible legalization of same (especially by CESCR); the fourth showing the possibility of legalization in Brazil, as well as operational problems and interpretative nature of this possibility and, by last, a concluding fifth chapter / O objetivo deste estudo é analisar o problema da efetividade (ou falta de efetividade) de direitos econômicos e sociais no Brasil à luz do entendimento jurisprudencial de nossos Tribunais. O trabalho é dividido em cinco capítulos, sendo o segundo referente ao surgimento e à evolução histórica dos direitos econômicos e sociais; o terceiro demonstra a busca de efetividade e possibilidade de judicialização dos mesmos (especialmente pelo Comitê DESC); o quarto mostra a possibilidade de judicialização no Brasil, bem como os problemas de natureza operacional e interpretativa dessa possibilidade e, por fim, o quinto capítulo, a conclusão