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Human Dignity, Land Dispossession, And The Right To Security Of Tenure: A Note On The South African Constitutional Court’s Judgement In Daniels v Scribante

Nomfundo Ramalekana - 26th May 2017

In a recent judgement by the South African Constitutional Court, Daniels v Scribante and Another, the court made a link between land dispossession, the right to security of tenure and the right to human dignity. This case will hopefully spark a new way to think about not only the right to security of tenure, but […]

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The European Court of Human Rights and the Emerging Right to Health

Lewis Graham - 11th May 2017

The ‘right to health’ is, perhaps unsurprisingly, absent from the European Convention on Human Rights. In a number of recent cases, however, the European Court has etched out a small space within the Convention for such a right, at least in certain circumstances, whilst setting up fertile ground for further development. In 2001, in the […]

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Likuwa v City of Windhoek: Namibian Court Misses an Opportunity to Develop Land Occupation Laws

Ndjodi Ndeunyema - 17th April 2017

Namibia’s history is one tainted by grotesque land evictions en masse and natives suffering dispossession at the hands of settler colonialists and apartheid-inspired forced evictions. This legacy subsists today, with land and housing provision being the most emotive of Namibia’s socio-political debates, featuring prominently in the recent State of the Nation Address. The issue has […]

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Access, Affordability, and the American Health Reform Dilemma, Part III: How an ACA Repeal Would Devastate Appalachia

Jennifer Oliva - 29th March 2017

Throughout the 2016 American election cycle, most Republicans, including President Donald J. Trump, ran on platform vowing to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act (ACA), known colloquially as “Obamacare.” In January 2017, the Republican-controlled U.S. Congress took initial steps toward repealing the health care act.  Pro-repeal legislators, however, have failed to reach consensus regarding […]

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Access, Affordability, and the American Health Reform Dilemma, Part II: The Affordable Care Act’s First Seven Years

Elizabeth McCuskey - 28th March 2017

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA) turned seven last week, with a proposed legislative effort to gut many of its core protections looming.  Then, in a dramatic turn on Friday afternoon, the proponents of the repeal abandoned their effort for lack of majority support, leaving the ACA as the “law of […]

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Access, Affordability, and the American Health Reform Dilemma, Part I: Genesis of the Affordable Care Act

Elizabeth McCuskey - 27th March 2017

The debate over the government’s role in health care is not a new one, nor is the existential crisis that surrounds it.  On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the culmination of years of both widespread public support for health reform and vigorous disagreement over what form reform should take.  […]

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Using Technology to Personalise and Advance Learning in Classrooms in India

Pranav Kothari, Anurima Chatterjee and Aarushi Prabhakar - 26th March 2017

India has seen a push from both the private and state sectors to use technology in an effort to improve learning outcomes for children in schools. There is a central government ICT policy in place which provides grants to schools to be spent on hardware and software. Organisations have experimented with various modes of deployment […]

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A Controversial Judgment of the Spanish Constitutional Court: Excluding Irregular Migrants from Free Healthcare

Tania Abbiate - 14th March 2017

Last July, the Spanish Constitutional Court issued a contentious judgment in one of a number of pending constitutional challenges to a modification to the Spanish national health-care system. The changes to the healthcare system mainly concern the move from a universal healthcare system to an insurance-based one, but only for certain people. The number of […]

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Improving Legal Literacy in the Struggle for the Right to Education

Faranaaz Veriava - 10th March 2017

On 15 February 2017, a partnership of civil society organisations that have been involved in rights-based struggles for access to a quality basic education launched a Basic Education Rights Handbook. The initiative has been led by the public interest organisation Section27.  The partner organisations that have contributed to the Handbook are: The Equal Education Law […]

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Confronting Ongoing Racial Discrimination in Schools Admissions Policies in South Africa

James Rooney - 20th February 2017

I am now in my final month of working for the Legal Resources Centre and Rhodes University as the Oxford Human Rights Hub Travelling Fellow for 2016. This fellowship has been an incredible experience. After taking courses last year in Oxford which covered South African human rights and non-discrimination jurisprudence, the opportunity to actively engage […]

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Social Rights in the New Economic Architecture of the European Union

Olivier De Schutter - 13th February 2017

What started in the United States as the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008 led the European Union to fundamentally rethink its socio-economic governance tools, calling into question the balance between the economic and the social dimensions of European integration.  The sequence of events is well known. The financial crisis rapidly turned into a sovereign debt […]

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Aadhaar’s Bearing on India’s Public Distribution System and the Right to Food

Srujana Bej - 3rd February 2017

Since 1951 India’s Public Distribution System (PDS) has operated as a safety net for millions of poor households. The System provides fixed quantities of food grains at affordable prices. In recent times, PDS has become contingent on Aadhaar-based vetting of right-holders. This has left some of the most vulnerable right-holders unable to access affordable food. […]

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