The intended purpose of the following thesis was to explore and attempt to understand how Congolese Bouncers, specifically in Cape Town, construct their own masculine identities in liminal spaces. This exploration entailed examining the complexities and connections between immigrants, immigrant bouncers and masculine identities; within those areas, encompassing a multitude of periphery factors. The literature reviewed for this thesis then encompassed research on immigrants in South Africa, masculinities and masculine identities, bouncers, and illegal substances; individually as well as the correlations between and amongst the different areas. Thus, the following thesis consists of five chapters, with three, identified, key themes set out in individual chapters. A Foucauldian framework was used as a means of synthesising the often divergent areas of thought, as, at their core, they share concerns with knowledge, power, violence (in various forms) and identity. In the attempt to understand the subjective experiences and realities of these Congolese bouncers, the methodology employed for the collection of data was entirely qualitative in nature; specifically, that of phenomenological research. This method was situated within the (social) constructivist paradigm, used to guide the researcher in understanding "a phenomenon from the perspective of those experiencing it" (Constantino, 2008:119); using participant observation and interviewing as the primary forms of data collection. Upon listening to the individual "stories" and lived realities of the research participants, one of the key understandings in the conclusion of this thesis is that the "immigrant bouncer", in a South African context, exists in different realities. His identity, and more specifically his construction of masculinity, is divided by necessity between day and night. An identity that is constantly shifted and adapted to unfixed social structures. Through this research the hope is to create space for an alternative discussion which disrupts current conceptions around both immigrants and bouncers.

This study explores provincial participation and examines (a) how and (b) to what extent negotiating mandates of the respective provinces are taken into account in the legislative processes of Parliament in selected bills in terms of ss 74 and 76 of the Constitution, 1996. It evaluates to what extent current systems, processes, rules and legislation give effect to the will of provinces, as an expression of the views emanating from provincial public participation. The study provides a brief overview of the historic background and evolution of the Parliament of South Africa, followed by a discussion of the constitutional and legislative framework from which the NCOP derives its mandate and a brief comparison of the NCOP to the second chamber of the German Federal Republic, the Bundesrat. The discussion of the Mandating Procedures of Provinces Act, 2008 examines in which ways the Act helps or hinders the mandating processes, drawing on case studies of selected s 76 bills processed before and after the MPPA came into effect. It considers whether the NCOP's public consultation can remedy flawed or inadequate public participation by a department. In the case of constitutional amendment bills that proposes provincial boundary changes, s 74 of the Constitution requires an affected province's approval for such a bill to be passed. It considers whether a constitutional amendment bill can be amended and propose various options for consideration. The conclusion finds that the NCOP gives effect to its constitutional mandate to represent provinces in the legislative and other processes of Parliament with lesser degrees of success in respect of ss74 and 76 bills affecting provinces. It recommends a review and amendment of the MPPA and the NCOP Rules (and where relevant the Joint Rules of Parliament) to enable provinces to have a more meaningful impact on the legislative and other Parliamentary processes involving provinces.

From initially placing the burden of injury almost exclusively on the injured employee, growing social awareness of the inherent risks in the workplace has seen an ever increasing willingness to hold the employer liable.1 This was initially driven by the courts, but developments were soon overtaken by the work of political activists and trade unions, which placed great pressure on business and the state to find more equitable systems of worker protection.2 This culminated in what is so often referred to as a new balance3 being struck in the form of comprehensive legislation to protect workers. In South Africa, this comprehensive legislation is the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act 3 of 1993 ('the COIDA'). The COIDA extinguishes an employee's common law rights to sue the employer for damages4 and instead introduces a no-fault system of compensation in which the employee is guaranteed an amount of compensation, when the harm from the accidents or occupational disease arises in the workplace.5 The compensation payable is in most situations significantly less to that which could be claimed at common law, being capped at a maximum of the total pecuniary loss to an employee.6 The employer thus avoids the risks associated with the possibility of costly damages claims while being obliged to fund the legislative compensation scheme through a tariff system. The tariffs payable are dependent on the risks associated with the class of industry and the safety record of the individual business.7 THE COIDA in recognition of the need to discourage employers from maintaining unsafe workplaces preserved a common law like8 fault based entitlement to what is termed 'increased compensation' under s 56 of the COIDA. 9 The significance of the provision lies in the ability of an injured employee or their dependents to claim back the difference between the no-fault compensation paid and their respective pecuniary loss.10 While potentially having a dramatic impact on the compensation received the section is completely underutilised.11 The reasons for this underutilisation are said to lie in potential claimants either being ignorant of the provisions or unable to institute claims.12 This thesis will examine the interaction between the law that regulates workmen's compensation and one aspect of how this modern system of law deals with the age old problem of negligently caused harm in the workplace. In particular, it argues that another important reason why claims for increased compensation are underutilised is because the common law defence of contributory negligence is said to apply to a claim for increased compensation. The result of this is that laws, which have since been abolished with the passing of the Apportionment of Damages Act 34 of 195613 ('the ADA') continue to apply in this one statute. The result is that cases developed over a century ago, which involved law on hobbled donkeys and steam powered trains, continues to have a major influence on whether a claim for increased compensation is successful or not.14 As will be shown, this position is untenable and a new interpretation of the provision for increased compensation is required.

Includes bibliographical references. / The preamble of the Agreement establishing the WTO, the so called Marrakesh Agreement, points out the general significance of environmental protection and sustainable development. The WTO law contains several provisions concerning the environment. However, it is not yet finally clarified in how far WTO Members can adopt measures to protect the environment where those measures have trade restricting effects. This question is particularly problematic where a Member implements such a measure unilaterally and the measure affects other countries’ policies. The question at stake is to what extent Member States can unilaterally adopt measures to protect the environment where those measures have extraterritorial effect, i.e. where those measures require other states to change their policies in order to gain access to the importing country’s market. The GATT/WTO adjudicating body had to deal with two disputes addressing this issue, namely the Tuna-Dolphin dispute5 and the Shrimp-Turtle case. These two disputes are of outstanding importance for the issue of unilateral measures with extraterritorial effect to protect the environment. Both disputes dealt with the question whether import embargoes, that were inconsistent with Article XI of the GATT for they imposed quantitative import restrictions, could be justified under Article XX (g) of the GATT as measures to conserve exhaustible natural resources. The two decisions interpreted Article XX of the GATT, particularly paragraph g of that provision, differently. The question whether countries can unilaterally adopt measures to protect the environment where those measures have extraterritorial effect must be analysed against the backdrop of both WTO jurisprudence and general principles of international law.

Includes bibliographical references. / A state centric approach to policing has had a detrimental effect on security governance in South Africa. This approach is an enduring legacy of the Hobbesian worldview which places the state at the centre of security governance. However, the multiplicity of policing actors throughout the history of South Africa undermines the notion that the SAPS have monopoly on security governance. The popularity of the state police in the public’s perception of security governance highlights a need of a policing approach which gives the SAPS a role as well as acknowledges other policing actors; minimal policing is a plausible alternative

One of the remarkable features of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010 is its explicit recognition in Article 47 of the right to fair administrative action as a fundamental right in the bill of rights and the replacement of parliamentary sovereignty with constitutional supremacy. These aspects of the 2010 Constitution sought to effect broad revolutionary changes to Kenya's administrative justice jurisprudence, which was previously premised in large part on the common law. The constitutional right to fair administrative action has been further elaborated in the Fair Administrative Action Act, 2015 (FAAA), which gives content to the grounds for judicial review and outlines the relevant procedure. But despite this, Kenyan courts have in most cases failed to give meaningful effect to the revolutionary potential of Article 47. In such cases, courts often revert to the limited and outmoded options under the common law, thereby disregarding the broader and more flexible pathways to judicial review of administrative action available under the 2010 Constitution. The main question to be addressed is: whether the revolutionary potential of Article 47 of the 2010 Constitution has been realized in Kenyan law and practice; and if so, how does Kenya's administrative law jurisprudence compare with that in Malawi and South Africa, comparable jurisdictions where the right to administrative justice has similarly been constitutionalized. The central argument to be made in this study is that considerable scope exists for unlocking the revolutionary potential of Article 47 by way of: i) clarifying the meaning of 'administrative action' and the new grounds for judicial review; ii) elaborating how common law-based judicial review relates with Article 47 and provisions of FAAA; and iii) articulating the horizontal effect of Article 47. Using a comparative law approach, the case is made that much can be gained by examining the best practices from jurisdictions, like South Africa, with more progressive jurisprudence that can be adopted in those, like Kenya and Malawi, which still experience problems in giving meaningful effect to the right to fair administrative action.

A Jus cogens is a hierarchically superior norm 'from which no derogation is permitted'. This peremptory norm suggests that there is a hierarchy among rules relating to international law. As such the recent trend of placing human rights norms in the catalogue of jus cogens has had a significant impact on both domestic and international law. For instance, in Barcelona Traction, Light and power Co, Ltd (Belgium v Spain), the International Court of Justice (ICJ), when making a distinction between the obligation of states towards the international community as whole and those arising vis-Ñ -vis another state, held that the former are obligation erga omnes in view of their importance

Includes bibliographical references. / The right to vote is the most important and often even the only possibility of citizens to participate in a democracy’s governance. Generally accepted democratic principles like the electoral equality and the objective to include all citizens who have acquired their full age and are of sound mind in the decision-making process demand that disenfranchisement may - if at all - only occur in very exceptional cases. However, laws infringing prisoners’ right to vote are widespread and differ greatly among established democracies: While some states do not impose any restrictions on the right of prisoners to vote, others (like many states in the USA) exclude most or all of their detainees from taking part in elections, sometimes even after their release.1 Even though this phenomenon pertains to core issues of democratic principles as well as central human rights aspects, it has not been subject to noteworthy public debate for a long time. Due to several decisions of national constitutional courts and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) within the last decade, felony disenfranchisement has gained more attention among legal academics. Still, most of this literature is limited to the specific arguments which have been brought forward in the particular court procedures. From my point of view, a holistic analysis which seeks to give a general recommendation whether or not to grant prisoners the right to vote – and if so, what restrictions may still be feasible – must not only focus on a national context, but has to consider legal philosophic and political issues, too. The long grinding debate which is going on in the British Parliament about the amendments demanded by Strasbourg’s European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) emphasises the practical necessity of such a study.

The consequential problems emanating from the linkages between law and politics in the international sphere will be examined in this dissertation. In particular, the SC referral mechanism to the ICC and its associated problems will be explored. The primary focus will be an investigation of the procedure used to refer a situation to the ICC, provided in Article 13 (b) of the Rome Statute.

The illicit wildlife trade (IWT) is the fourth most lucrative form of organised crime globally (Donnenfeld & Aucoin, 2017:1). The Global Financial Integrity (GFI) reports that IWT is one of the most profitable and illicit economies with a profit margin of US$ 23 billion annually (May, 2017:np). It has developed into one of the most expensive security challenges. Affecting a broad range of plants and animals, the illegal trade in wildlife deprives nations of their biodiversity, income opportunities, natural heritage and capital (Nowak, 2016:1). Although governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and locals have sought to protect wildlife in the past, entire species of animals and plants are still in danger. To complicate matters, wildlife crime is no longer nationally bound and has moved to a highly sophisticated and a transnational problem (Steyn, 2017:np). Wildlife criminal syndicates exploit weaknesses in neighbouring countries criminal justice systems and porous borders amongst other elements making it easier for the crime to be transboundary in nature (Pienaar, 2014:2; Steyn, 2017:np), through loopholes derived from inconsistent neighbouring countries’ wildlife laws. This is due to each country listing country-relevant species and developing legislation suitable to their needs. However, the dynamics of wildlife crime being transnational and perpetrated by organised criminal networks cannot only be dealt with at a national level, as this may aid in the exploitation of wildlife crime laws and the above-mentioned loopholes (Warchol & Harrington, 2016:25). IWT has become a serious and global problem and has developed into a well organised criminal activity, involving multiple TCN’s. Its clandestine nature, coupled with it being deemed as a low risk crime has allowed it to extend into other forms of TOC’s in the SADC region. South Africa’s abalone crisis has moved from a national wildlife crime to that of a regional one. This is as a result of the TCN’s being involved in the poaching and smuggling of the marine mollusc at a rapid rate. Furthermore, East Asian criminal groups in collaboration with local Cape Flats gangs have successively used the illicit abalone trade to facilitate the drug trade in Cape Town. Although great efforts have gone into the protection of wild fauna and flora there the low risk of detection and weak deterrence due to low penalties in neighbouring SADC countries aid in the illicit trade. International regulatory frameworks such as CITES have undoubtedly been a key factor both in terms of raising awareness and developing collective responses and strategies to control the wildlife trade. However, like that of CITES, most international and regional treaties are only regulatory and require domestic laws to regulate the regional trade in endangered species. Ultimately, what is required is a domestic consensus in neighbouring countries laws to stop IWT.