Despite the apartheid government initially opposing it, SA has now acceded to the 1976 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid. It came into effect for SA on Thursday.
The convention declares apartheid a crime, allowing for member states to monitor and report apartheid and related crimes locally and internationally. By acceding to the Apartheid Convention, the justice department said it “would allow [SA] to take the lead in fighting racial discrimination worldwide”.
This is particularly the case now, with SA’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the UN’s adjudicative body between member states. That case itself is based on SA and Israel being member states of the Genocide Convention. SA, in its ICJ case, made references to its own apartheid history, arguing many of Israel’s policies against Palestinians mirrored SA’s apartheid regime.
In 2022, Naledi Pandor, the minister of international relations, said at a UN meeting that “the Palestinian narrative evokes experiences of SA’s own history of racial segregation”.
According to legal experts Gerhard Kemp and Victor Kattan, professors of law at University of West England Bristol and Nottingham University, respectively, 16 member states to the Apartheid Convention have made similar claims against Israel in the past.
In 1973, the SA apartheid government was one of four countries, including the US, that opposed the convention when it was introduced in the UN. The convention makes explicit mention of apartheid in SA and the crimes committed against people of colour. Neither the US nor Israel are parties to the Apartheid Convention.
However, despite SA overthrowing apartheid, it did not join the 1976 convention until Thursday.
‘Racial discrimination and oppression’
“The government felt apartheid was gone and there was therefore no need to ratify the Apartheid Convention,” explain Kemp and Kattan. However, over time this attitude changed. “There was a realisation that international instances of racial discrimination and oppression necessitate ratification of treaties such as the Apartheid Convention.”
In other words, SA would have more mechanisms by adopting the Apartheid Convention to be a global leader against racial discrimination. As MPs and government officials discussed in parliament in 2022, acceding to the Apartheid Convention was in line with the National Development Plan and other goals.
Government officials were further persuaded when told there would not be financial implications.
Kemp and Kattan say SA’s domestic laws cater to much of what the convention calls for. “It is clear from the debates in parliament and the government’s explanations,” they wrote in an explainer for the International Commission of Jurists, “that SA decided to accede to the Apartheid Convention, not for purposes of domestic law and policy, but rather to advance the international efforts to confront apartheid practices elsewhere in the world.”
With the convention, they speculate SA could call for the UN to re-establish a “Special Committee against Apartheid” that could serve as a global monitoring body.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.