First, Prof. Pieterse will look at how international and regional human rights tribunals have decided disputes concerning the imposition, destruction or deprivation of built urban infrastructure, for instance during urban "disasters" or armed conflict. He argues that international law is beginning to treat physical city buildings and spaces as the objects of a communal right to urban cultural and socio-economic life.

Secondly, he will show that domestic constitutional courts view the "right to the city" either as a communal property right, or as a dimension of the right to housing. To illustrate this, he will discuss two recent decisions of the South African Constitutional Court which have combined these two understandings in cases brought by urban justice movements of marginalised residents in the city of Cape Town.

This presentation is based on two forthcoming articles, one considering international and regional human rights law’s treatment of urban infrastructure, and the other considering the evolution of a spatial justice obligation and a right to the city in South African housing rights jurisprudence. 

Afterwards, the discussion will be moderated by Prof. Doutje Lettinga, Professor of Urban Dynamics of Rights and Justice at the University of Amsterdam.

About the speaker

Marius Pieterse is a professor of law at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where he teaches constitutional and human rights law. His research focuses on various public and international law dimensions of rights-based urban governance.