Sandile Ngcobo

Fall Term 2012

Archibald Cox Visiting Professor of Law

Research Interests

• Constitutional Law
• International Human Rights Law
• Legal History

Education

• University of Zululand, Empangeni, South Africa B Proc (Bachelor of Laws) 1975
• University of Natal, Durban, South Africa LL.B. (Bachelor of Laws) 1985
• Georgetown University Law Center, International Law Institute Certificate: U.S. Legal System 1985
• Harvard Law School LL.M. 1986

Appointments

• Retired Chief Justice of the Republic of South Africa
• Acting Judge of Appeal of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Namibia
• Archibald Cox Visiting Professor of Law, 2012

Additional Information

Justice Ngcobo will teach the course Socio-Economic Rights in the Fall 2012 term.

Biographical Statement

Justice S. Sandile Ngcobo, the former Chief Justice of the Republic of South Africa, was born in Durban on March 1, 1953. He received his undergraduate B. Proc degree from the University of Zululand in 1975, earning distinctions in constitutional law, mercantile law and accounting. He received an LLB degree from the University of Natal, Durban in 1985. After completing an orientation course on the United States' legal system offered by the International Law Institute at the Georgetown Law Centre in Washington, D.C., in 1985, he attended Harvard Law School and received an LLM degree in 1986, concentrating on constitutional law, labour law, international legal process and international human rights. Chief Justice Ngcobo was the beneficiary of a scholarship from Barclays Bank between 1973 and 1976, Fulbright Scholarship in 1986 and a recipient of a Harvard Law School Human Rights Fellowship. His career was interrupted for one year in 1976 when he was detained and held in solitary confinement following the student uprising in 1976.

Representative Publications

• Ngcobo, Sandile. "Sustaining Public Confidence in the Judiciary: An Essential Condition for Realising the Judicial Role," 128 The South African Law Journal 128 (2011).
  
• Ngcobo, Sandile. "South Africa's Transformative Constitution: Towards an Appropriate Doctrine of Separation of Powers," 22 Stellenbosch Law Review 37 (2011).
  
• Ngcobo, Sandile. "Truth, Justice, and Amnesty in South Africa: Sins from the Past and Lessons for the Future," 8 Ius Gentium (Journal of the University of Baltimore Center for International and Comparative Law) 1 (2008).
  
• Ngcobo, Sandile. "Delivery of Justice: Agenda for Change," 120 The South African Law Journal 688 (2003).
  
• Ngcobo, Sandile. "The Meaning of Article 4(1) of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women: A South African Perspective" in Temporary Special Measures: Accelerating de facto Equality of Women under Article 4(1) UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Ineke Boerefijn, Fons Coomans, Jenny E. Goldschmidt, Rikki Holtmaat & Ria Wolleswinkel eds., Intersentia, 2003).
  
• Ngcobo, Sandile. "Introduction to the Employment and Immigration Laws of the US for the Foreign Investor" in Business Opportunities in the united States: The Complete Reference Guide to Practices and Procedures (Robert F. Cushman & R. Lawrence Soares eds., Irwin Professional, 1992).
  
• Higginbotham, A. Leon, F. Michael Higginbotham & Sandile Ngcobo. "De Jure Housing Segregation in the United States and South Africa: The Difficult Pursuit for Racial Justice," 1990 University of Illinois Law Review 763 (1990).
  
• Ngcobo, Sandile. "Administration of Black Townships" in Para-Legal Manual (Durban: Legal Resources Centre, 1982).