Advocating for Accountability: Civic-State Interactions to Protect Refugees in South Africa

In the 1950s, civic society in South Africa became mobilized against racist laws that penetrated nearly every aspect of civic life. The social justice struggle that eventually displaced white minority rule culminated in democratic elections in 1994. Following this historic transition from authoritarian rule to democracy, other issues came to the fore, including how the government was to receive persons claiming refugee status on the basis of persecution and war. Civic actors in South Africa again became mobilized around these 'new' human rights and social justice issues. At different moments, civic actors became engaged either in working with the government to develop a refugee policy, or in confronting the government to fulfill its national and international obligations towards refugees. This book discusses the dynamics of civic-state interactions aimed at the state's obligations to promote, protect, and fulfill human rights. Through the lens of refugee rights advocacy in South Africa

Jeff Handmaker joined as Senior Lecturer the ISS (International Institute of Social Studies) in The Hague in 2007. Before that, he was lecturer in Law (Human Rights and Development) at the ISS. He studied law in England (1992: LLB-Newcastle and 1994: LLM, with Merit, School of Oriental and African Studies, London) and was called to the English bar in 1995. He obtained a PhD in the sociology of law at Utrecht University with a thesis on "Advocating for Accountability: Civic-State Interactions to Protect Refugees in South Africa". From the early 1990s, off and on until early 2000, he worked for the South African organisation Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), and for seven years after that as a freelance consultant, trainer and researcher, based in The Hague. Since 1999, he has published scholarly work, in academic and other journals, as well as four books and one special issue of the “South African Journal of Human Rights”.