Growing calls for SA to lead the UN in drafting a new Human Rights Treaty

JOHANNESBURG - There are growing calls for South Africa to take a lead role in shaping a new United Nations (UN) treaty on crimes against humanity including apartheid.

Human rights groups, including international organisation Madre, are urging government to contribute to the drafting process.

The calls come after a two-day dialogue co-hosted by the Nelson Mandela foundation, bringing together lawyers, feminists, and civil society to address the legacy of apartheid and other global atrocities.

International lawyer Wendy Isaack said existing laws don’t go far enough.

"International human rights law is not enough because it does not enable individual prosecution of those that should be held accountable for the crime of apartheid which means inhumane acts committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination on the basis of race, and these acts include murder, torture and assassinations that were committed by apartheid era security forces and agents of the state in South Africa," said Isaack.

She said the treaty should be broadly applicable to crimes worldwide.

"These matters because when we think of apartheid as a domineering system, as a regime that oppressed black people in SA we also bear in mind that when international law is being developed, this law must also be applicable to other contexts, and at the top of our list are the Israeli apartheid policies and practices in occupied Palestinian territory. And the South African government made this very submission in the international court of justice in the 2014 advisory opinion proceedings," said Isaack.

South Africa has previously made similar submissions at the International Court of Justice.