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HOME        About Us          Aims and Objectives          Staff Participants          Students          Community Outreach      The Strategic Research and Outreach Programme is an initiative of the University of Stellenbosch Law Faculty focused on the theme of the law as a mechanism for combating poverty, homelessness and socio-economic vulnerability.  The programme concentrates primarily on the rights and institutional mechanisms created under the Constitution of the Republic of South African, 1996. However, the research conducted under the programme also explores how comparative and international law can be invoked to respond to poverty and the developmental challenges experienced by many African countries. THE NEED FOR THE PROJECT The South African history of colonialism and apartheid has left our country with a deep legacy of poverty and inequality.  Fifteen years since the advent of democracy in South Africa, large sections of the population are still marginalised from full participation in our economy and society by a combination of poverty and other forms of systemic social disadvantage. Poverty and inequality are not only major socio-economic challenges for the country, but also threaten to destabilise and undermine democratic participation and consolidation. The Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 contains a number of significant rights and institutions which are relevant for redressing poverty and inequality.  The programme seeks to explore and promote the maximum utilisation of these mechanisms.  Where discriminatory apartheid-era laws and regulations once formally impeded access to the legal profession on racial grounds, poverty and socio-economic disadvantage continue to stand as obstacles to the much-needed diversification of the profession.  Despite admirable progress, people of colour, women, individuals with disabilities, and other important groups remain woefully underrepresented in legal practice, the judiciary and the legal academy.  The programme seeks to directly challenge this status quo by equipping a new and diverse generation of lawyers with postgraduate qualifications in topics related to overcoming socio-economic disadvantage through law. OVERVIEW OF THE PROJECT   The project is divided into three major components as follows:   1. Research There are currently seven faculty members conducting research on topics within the project's specialised themes.  They are: Socio-economic rights (Prof Sandra Liebenberg) Transformative property law and theory (Prof AJ van der Walt) Land reform and security of tenure in housing and land (Prof Juanita Pienaar) Legal and constitutional interpretation (Prof Lourens du Plessis) Equality, redress and poverty relief (Prof Ockert Dupper) Administrative justice (Prof Geo Quinot) Consolidating and deepening democracy (Prof Henk Botha) The programme enables the faculty participants to deepen and expand their current research agendas as well as explore cooperative research on cross-cutting themes pertaining to the combating of poverty, homelessness and socio-economic vulnerability under the constitutional dispensation.  The research will be published in both peer-reviewed and popular publications.  In addition, workshops and seminars will be regularly convened to discuss with a broader group of stakeholders the implications of research conducted under the auspices of the programme.  2. Post-graduate supervision and training   A key objective of the project is to recruit and fund full-time post-graduate (LLM and LLD) students to write masters and doctoral theses within the broad themes of the project.  The bulk of the funding under the programme provides bursaries and assistantships to students wishing to pursue post-graduate studies within the programme.  The programme can accommodate up to 30 post-graduate students each year.  It strives to attract students from diverse backgrounds with a special emphasis on students from disadvantaged groups.   Apart from in-depth supervision and involvement in the various seminars, workshops, and other activities conducted under the auspices of this project, students are provided with intensive training and advisory support to enable them to succeed in their academic programmes.  Students accepted into the project benefit from good library and infrastructure facilities, exposure to critical scholarship and debate, as well as participation in the test case litigation and community outreach activities of the Legal Aid Clinic.  3. Community outreach and access to legal services   The project augments the efforts of the Law Faculty's Legal Aid Clinic to reduce poverty and socio-economic marginalisation through litigation and community outreach.  Through its contributions in cases involving evictions from land and housing, debt relief, family violence and access to resources such as social grants, the Legal Aid Clinic is well-placed to identify and litigate potential test cases relating to constitutional rights.  Such litigation can help to set rights-enhancing precedents for the benefit of other similarly marginalised communities.  The specialised research efforts of the project's Faculty participants, along with the post-graduate work undertaken by its students, are targeted to assist in strengthening the theoretical underpinning for the Legal Aid Clinic's litigation efforts.  In this way, the Legal Aid Clinic, the Law Faculty and the students work hand-in-hand to advance the project's goals through practical, "on the ground" community empowerment efforts.    OVERSIGHT AND ADMINISTRATION   The project is jointly co-ordinated by Prof Sandra Liebenberg, H.F. Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights Law, and Prof AJ van der Walt, South African Research Chair in Property Law, with input from the five other participants from the Law Faculty.  Details of each participant's research can be found under the "Research Areas" tab of this website.  Ms Julie Maupin, a Yale-trained specialist in international economic law, helped to launch the project and served as the start-up project manager.  Mr Gustav Muller now serves in the position of project manager.   The project benefits from considerable intstitutional support within the University of Stellenbosch.  The Law Faculty, in cooperation with the University, has generously retrofitted a beautiful Cape Dutch building dating from 1865 to serve as the project's institutional base.  The building, known as the CL Marais building, is conveniently located next-door to the Old Main Building where the Law Faculty if situated.  This facilitates easy access and "cross-pollination" between the project participants and the rest of the Law Faculty.     HISTORY OF THE PROJECT   The project was initiated in 2009 with start-up funds provided by the University of Stellenbosch for a period of three years (2009 - 2011).  These funds were allocated as part of the University's Institutional Strategic Plan (ISP), which is aimed at aligning University research priorities with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.  The grant has funded the initial cohort of post-graduate students and has enabled the Law Faculty to begin implementing its vision to combine the research expertise of several members of the Law Faculty and the community outreach efforts of the Legal Aid Clinic in service of the project's goals.   A grant was also obtained from the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights to enable the Legal Aid Clinic to work in partnership with Lawyers for Human Rights (Stellenbosch) on strategic test case litigation.  This litigation is aimed at improving the security of tenure and socio-economic circumstances of people living and working on nearby farms.  A component of this grant funds a post-graduate student to conduct research on the rights of farm-dwellers under the supervision of Prof Juanita Pienaar, one of the project's faculty participants.   In its first year, the project enrolled and provided financial support for 21 post-graduate students who are currently pursuing research-based LLM and LLD degrees.  Applications for the next incoming class have been submitted and are currently under evaluation.  The programme is well on its way toward achieving its goal of supporting 30 post-graduate students each year.   Details on opportunities to become involved in supporting the programme's efforts, and in particular its students, can be found on the "Partners" tab of this website. Applications for postgraduate research during 2011 now open. Click here for more information. Deadline: 30 July 2010