Biosketch

Prof Sandra Liebenberg

Prof Sandra Liebenberg (BA LLB (UCT); LLM with distinction (Essex); LLD (Witwatersrand)) is the HF Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights Law and Distinguished Professor in the Faculty of Law, University of Stellenbosch. She is also Co-Director of the Faculty’s Socio-Economic Rights and Administrative Justice Research Project (SERAJ).

Prof Liebenberg has published widely in the field of socio-economic rights. Her research and advocacy focus in the area of socio-economic rights has made a significant contribution internationally to legal scholarship on these fundamental rights.

She serves on the editorial boards of several national and international human rights law journals, including the Human Rights Law Review, the Queen Mary Human Rights Law Review, the South African Journal on Human Rights, and Constitutional Court Review. In 2011 she was Distinguished African Scholar at Cornell University Law School, and JC Smith Trust Fund Distinguished Visiting Scholar, School of Law, University of Nottingham for 2014 – 2015.

In 2017 Prof Liebenberg was elected as a member of the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the body which supervises compliance by States Parties with their obligations under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (1966). In 2019 she was elected as Vice-Chair of the Committee.

She serves on the staff of the Global School on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and co-organises an annual flagship Advanced International Course on the Justiciability of Socio-Economic Rights with the Åbo Akademi Institute of Human Rights, Finland and the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights. She has also served on the drafting committee to prepare the Guidelines and Principles for Interpreting the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

During her time at Stellenbosch University she has been the recipient of a number of Rector’s Awards, including for teaching excellence. In December 2014, she received the University of Stellenbosch’s top accolade, a Chancellor’s Award, for her contribution to community service in the field of law in South Africa.

She previously served as Chair of the Technical Committee advising the Constitutional Assembly on the drafting of the Bill of Rights in the 1996 Constitution of South Africa. She has been involved in a number of landmark socio-economic rights cases which have been decided in the Constitutional Court through assisting in the drafting of amici curiae (friend of the court) submissions in cases such as Grootboom, Treatment Action Campaign, Modderklip and Occupiers of 51 Olivia Road.

In addition, she has served on the board of directors of a number of human rights NGOs involved in socio-economic rights advocacy and litigation, including as Chair of the Board of Directors of the Women’s Legal Centre and the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa. In 1997, she founded the Socio-Economic Rights Project at the Community Law Centre (now Dullah Omar Institute, UWC) and its flagship publication, ESR Review.

Her current research is focused on the contribution of the Covenant to developing innovative mechanisms for implementing, monitoring and adjudicating economic, social and cultural rights at a global level. She is also conducting research into the implications of the concept of sustainable development for interpreting economic, social and cultural rights in both South African and international law. She supervises research LLM and LLD students in the aforementioned areas as well as general areas of human rights law.