The development of graffiti into an accepted art form, street art, is a cause of concern for South African property owners. The current position in South African property law regarding the original acquisition of ownership suggests that the creation of street art on movable property belonging to another could result in the transfer of ownership. Ownership of the movable may transfer via accessio to the street artist provided that the artwork changes the nature of the movable. This would occur even if the street artist does not act in good faith because bona fides is not a requirement for the original acquisition of ownership via accessio. This anomaly requires that the South African law on accession in the case of pictura be developed such that good faith be a requirement for the transfer of ownership in this format. With the development and growing popularity of the art form the likelihood of this legal anomaly is becoming a greater possibility. Indeed, the popularity of British street artist, Banksy, has provided numerous examples of contested ownership, albeit within English law. Banksy artworks are collectable and financially valuable. Consequently, not only are they desirable but many of his street artworks are considered to be examples of British cultural heritage and as such may be worthy of protection and preservation. These cases highlight the growing need in South Africa to clearly identify who South African street artworks belong to and, to identify any South African street art that warrants cultural heritage protection. The legislation regarding the protection of South African cultural heritage resources has not yet been extended to any street artworks. Yet there are examples of street art in South Africa that meet the requirements for cultural heritage status or which have the characteristics of cultural heritage resources. The extension of cultural heritage resource status to South African street artworks that are culturally significant could assist in the protection and preservation of these resources. However, the effectiveness of the cultural heritage legislation, in particular the National Heritage Resources Act 25 of 1999, is limited. There are several problematic aspects in this Act. This is of great concern as the issues effect all South Africa’s cultural heritage resources (not just street art which may qualify for such status). However, these issues could be responded to through amendments to the legislation. Significantly, the National Heritage Resources Act seeks to deprive private owners of their property as it seeks to regulate what owners can do with cultural heritage property which they own. However, as it stands there are far too many challengeable issues in this legislation to justifiably deprive this property in terms of s25 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. This renders significant portions of the National Heritage Resources Act inoperable. Consequently, the amendment of this legislation is necessary to ensure the purpose of the legislation i.e. to ensure the protection and preservation of the South Africa’s cultural heritage resources through the deprivation of property rights or indeed, if necessary, through the expropriation of property. / College of Law / LL. D.

The needs of the free trade regime and governments' legitimate regulatory aims in the area of public health protection conflict. Government health measures create barriers to free trade and are thus disciplined by the trade regime. This conflict is addressed in the rules of the World Trade Organization, in the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. This Agreement uses science to mediate the conflict. The reason for the reliance on science is the view that it provides a neutral, universally-valid discipline and that thus the results of testing health measures for scientific validity would be acceptable to both parties in a dispute. This uncritical approach towards science is called into question. An analysis of the relevant science-based disciplines of the SPS Agreement and their interpretation in WTO dispute settlement shows the flaws in this system. A re-evaluation of the WTO rules governing health regulation is called for. / Law / LL.M.

Orientation: The safety of any natural being with respect to the processing of their personal information is an essential human right as specified in the Zimbabwe Data Protection Act (ZDPA) bill. Once enacted, the ZDPA bill will affect universities as public entities. It will directly impact how personal information is collected and processed. The bill will be fundamental in understanding the privacy perceptions of students in relation to privacy awareness, privacy expectations and confidence within university. These need to be understood to give guidelines to universities on the implementation of the ZPDA. Problem Statement: The current constitution and the ZDPA are not sufficient to give organisations guidelines on ensuring personal information privacy. There is need for guidelines to help organisations and institutions to implement and comply with the provisions of the ZDPA in the context of Zimbabwe. The privacy regulations, regarded as the three concepts (awareness, expectations and confidence), were used to determine the student perceptions. These three concepts have not been researched before in the privacy context and the relationship between the three concepts has not as yet been established. Research purpose: The main aim of the study was to develop and validate an Information Privacy Perception Survey (IPPS) diagnostic tool and a Student Personal Information Privacy Perception (SPIPP) model to give guidelines to universities on how they can implement the ZDPA and aid universities in comprehending student privacy perceptions to safeguard personal information and assist in giving effect to their privacy constitutional right. Research Methodology: A quantitative research method was used in a deductive research approach where a survey research strategy was applied using the IPPS instrument for data collection. The IPPS instrument was designed with 54 items that were developed from the literature. The preliminary instrument was taken through both the expert review and pilot study. Using the non-probability convenience sampling method, 287 students participated in the final survey. SPSS version 25 was used for data analysis. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were done. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was used to validate the instrument while confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and the structural equation modelling (SEM) were used to validate the model. Main findings: diagnostic instrument was validated and resulted in seven new factors, namely university confidence (UC), privacy expectations (PE), individual awareness (IA), external awareness (EA), privacy awareness (PA), practice confidence (PC) and correctness expectations (CE). Students indicated that they had high expectations of the university on privacy. The new factors showed a high level of awareness of privacy and had low confidence in the university safeguarding their personal information privacy. A SPIPP empirical model was also validated using structural equation modelling (SEM) and it indicated an average overall good fit between the proposed SPIPP conceptual model and the empirically derived SPIPP model Contribution: A diagnostic instrument that measures the perceptions (privacy awareness, expectations and confidence of students) was developed and validated. This study further contributed a model for information privacy perceptions that illustrates the relationship between the three concepts (awareness, expectations and confidence). Other universities can use the model to ascertain the perceptions of students on privacy. This research also contributes to improvement in the personal information protection of students processed by universities. The results will aid university management and information regulators to implement measures to create a culture of privacy and to protect student data in line with regulatory requirements and best practice. / School of Computing / Ph. D. (Information Systems)

The thesis deals with the question about necessary conditions to achieve the objective of a high level of consumer protection in the context of the ongoing internal electricity market taking into account the grid-bound electricity supply, which is characterized by the natural monopoly of regulated networks as well as by competition for the homogeneous product electricity. It evaluates the relationship between effective competition and energy sector-specific consumer protection taking into account the energy-specific regulatory law and examines in detail the regulations of the Directive 2009/72/EC concerning consumer protection under the perspective of enabling the responsible and informed consumer to operate as a self-determined market participant and so shape the market actively towards its completion. After art. 114 TFEU as the existing central norm concerning the alignment of the internal energy market is distinguished from other possible competence rules like the new energy sector-specific competence title of art. 194 TFEU the requirements developed by the ECJ case law concerning art. 114 TFEU from the point of view of the energy sector-specific consumer protection are presented. The thesis clarifies both to what extent in Directive 2009/72/EC codified consumer rights are suitable to achieve...

The practice of spamming (sending unsolicited electronic communications) has been dubbed “the scourge of the 21st century” affecting different stakeholders. This practice is also credited for not only disrupting electronic communications but also, it overloads electronic systems and creates unnecessary costs for those affected than the ones responsible for sending such communications. In trying to address this issue nations have implemented anti-spam laws to combat the scourge. South Africa not lagging behind, has put in place anti-spam provisions to deal with the scourge. The anti-spam provisions are scattered in pieces of legislation dealing with diverse issues including: consumer protection; direct marketing; credit laws; and electronic transactions and communications. In addition to these provisions, an Amendment Bill to one of these laws and two Bills covering cybercrimes and cyber-security issues have been published. In this thesis, a question is asked on whether the current fragmented anti-spam provisions are adequate in protecting consumers. Whether the overlaps between these pieces of legislation are competent to deal with the ever increasing threats on electronic communications at large. Finally, the question as to whether a multi-faceted approach, which includes a Model Law on spam would be a suitable starting point setting out requirements for the sending of unsolicited electronic communications can be sufficient in protecting consumers. And as spam is not only a national but also a global problem, South Africa needs to look at the option of entering into mutual agreements with other countries and organisations in order to combat spam at a global level. / Mercantile Law / LL. D.