Socio-Economic Rights in South Africa

by Langford, Malcolm; Cousins, Ben; Dugard, Jackie; Madlingozi, Tshepo

• ISBN13: 9781107021143
• ISBN10: 1107021146
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-11-18
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

The embrace of socio-economic rights in South Africa has featured prominently in scholarship on constitution making, legal jurisprudence and social mobilisation. But the development has attracted critics who claim that this turn to rights has not generated social transformation in practice. This book sets out to assess one part of the puzzle and asks what has been the role and impact of socio-economic strategies used by civil society actors. Focusing on a range of socio-economic rights and national trends in law and political economy, the book's authors show how socio-economic rights have influenced the development of civil society discourse and action. The evidence suggests that some strategies have achieved material and political impact but this is conditional on the nature of the claim, degree of mobilisation and alliance building, and underlying constraints.

Table of Contents

Introduction: civil society and rights

Context and Contestation:

Constitutional jurisprudence: the first and second waves

Socio-economic rights beyond the public/private law divide

Post-apartheid social movements and legal mobilisation

Political power: social pacting, human rights and the development agenda

Thematic Areas:

Rural land tenure: the potential and limits of rights-based approaches

Housing rights litigation: Grootboom and beyond

Health rights: politics, places and the need for 'sites for rights'

Social security rights: campaigns and courts

Urban basic services: rights, reality and resistance

Realising environmental rights: civic action, leverage, and litigation

Access to information and socio-economic rights: a theory of change in practice

Gender and socio-economic rights: the case of gender-based violence and health

Migrants and mobilisation around socio-economic rights Tara

Concluding perspectives

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