The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law by Albie Sachs – French Edition – Welcoming remarks and tribute to Professor Christof Heyns (Traduction française en bas du texte)
Posted: 22 December, 2021 Filed under: Justice Albie Sachs | Tags: Albie Sachs, Christof Heyns, French Edition, The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law, welcoming remarks Leave a comment
Author: Justice Albie Sachs
Author & Former Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa
This edition is remarkable in many ways.
To begin with, it has been published by the Centre for Human Rights (Centre) at the University of Pretoria, the university that was once the brain, the soul and the heart of apartheid thinking. What a brave effort it had been in the 1980s, when Mandela and others were still in prison, people like myself were in exile and the country was suffering from one State of Emergency after another, for Professors Johann Van der Westhuizen and Christof Heyns to establish the Centre. Then, after democracy was achieved, Johann went on to become a colleague of mine on the South African Constitutional Court, while Christof took over the Centre’s leadership. The main thrust of his work was to link the Centre with lawyers, law teachers and students throughout the African continent. Christof died earlier this year. We still feel the shock at the passing of a most remarkable person. He was humane, he was funny, he was hardworking. He had a quiet passion, and there was absolutely no showoff at all in anything that he did. He made impossible things possible. He worked with equal ease and success all over the African continent, at Geneva, and for the United Nations. The clash of ideas enthralled him. Nothing about human life was ever banal; any team he ever headed found the discussions enthralling. It was fun – the more intractable the subject matter, the more exciting and joyous the extraction of serviceable and meaningful truths. Wherever he went he brought with him this creative, participatory style of work. And one of his special projects was to connect up English-speaking and French-speaking lawyers in Africa. This French language edition of the book is dedicated to him.
How would international human rights law deal with a potentially automized future?
Posted: 20 July, 2021 Filed under: Eduardo Kapapelo | Tags: algorithms, artificial intelligence technologies, autonomous weapons systems, aws, ‘self-aware’ autonomous weapons, Christof Heyns, Future Combat System Project, human rights, Human Rights Council, humanitarian law, law, legal, LGBTI, self-aware, targeted surveillance, Terminator 3 1 Comment
Author: Eduardo Kapapelo
Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
Introduction
In a scene from Jonathan Mostow’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, the ‘Terminator’ played by Arnold Schwarzenegger says, ‘Cybernet has become self-aware’. While the context of such words are within a scripted science fiction world, they nevertheless seem to be echoes of a futures we seem to be writing – whether willingly or not.
While Mostow’s ‘killer robots’ or ‘terminators’ – are essentially autonomous weapons systems sent through time to kill a person seems farfetched and squarely within the realm of science fiction, perhaps it is not life imitating art, but art imitating life. The United States Future Combat System Project which aimed to manufacture a ‘robot army’ seems to have hinted that the future might not be as fictitious as we think.
The promises and limitations of law in guaranteeing freedom in Africa: The right to a Revolution
Posted: 30 June, 2021 Filed under: Eduardo Kapapelo | Tags: African Charter, Christof Heyns, crimes against humanity, democratic order, dictatorial governments, fair elections, genocide, human rights, human rights violations, international crimes, Lome Declaration against unconstitutional changes of government, peace and security, political violence, post-indepedence, recourse, revolution, State violence, struggle approach, violence Leave a commentAuthor: Eduardo Kapapelo
Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
One of the main objectives of international and regional law is to maintain peace and security. It has been reasoned that where there is peace and security, humanity stands a better chance to protect individual rights and freedoms. On account of the importance of peace and security at national, regional and international level, States agreed to criminalize those who engage in violent conduct or seek to change governments through the use of violent force. Yet, is it a coincidence that in many dictatorial governments with atrocious human rights records, opposition leaders are often charged of attempting to unconstitutionally change the government of the day? This contribution seeks to discuss the right to a just-revolution and how existing laws promise freedoms but is limited in delivery when it comes to dictatorial governments. In this contribution, a just-revolution is defined as a revolution to overthrow a government of the day whose rule is characterised by gross human rights violations or international crimes such as crimes against humanity and genocide. Do citizens have a right to a just-revolution?
AfricLaw 