Professor Dire Tladi: SA expert enters new legal territory

From giving legal advice to a former foreign affairs minister and contributing to United Nations resolutions which led to the ousting of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, international law expert Professor Dire Tladi has set his sights on the legalities of global regulations relating to the coronavirus pandemic.

Tladi, 45, was recently appointed to serve in the Geneva-based Institut de Droit International’s Commission on Pandemics and International Law.

It is an opportunity to contribute to the development of international law surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.

“I feel honoured and I feel this is recognition of my work which I have put in over the years.

“I am proud that South Africa is recognised through my appointment,” he told Saturday Citizen.

A University of Pretoria lecturer and professor in the law faculty’s Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa and the department of public law, he knew he wanted to take the legal route when he was just 10 years old.

Tladi, who was born in Ga-Rankuwa and raised in Mafikeng, said: “There was no one who inspired me to do it, there were no lawyers in my family.

“I just knew from the time I was young that this is what I want to do.”

He got an opportunity to pursue his dream in 1994, enrolling at the University of Pretoria to study law. That was when he gained knowledge about international law and was immediately drawn to it.

“It struck me as an interesting field of law,” he said. “I knew that this is more of my kind of thing.

“I enjoyed international law because it gave space for independent thinking and it is less developed than domestic law, due to its nature.

“Domestic law is legislation, meaning there is less room for instilling your own values.”

After completing his first degree, a BLC, he was offered a position in the university’s law faculty.

What struck the young lawyer was the racial imbalance among his colleagues at the time, which sparked an initiative to transform the faculty.

“It was an all-white university at the time. This was in the mid-1990s and the staff complement at the law faculty was completely white.

“One of the questions was, how does the university and the faculty, in particular, transform?

“We embarked on a programme called Grow Your Own Timber to take talented black students who just completed their first degree to be appointed into the faculty.”

His academic career began to take off and he also joined the University of South Africa in 2002 as an associate professor. Four years later, he joined the then department of foreign affairs as a legal adviser.

In 2009, he went to New York to start a new job as legal counsellor to the South African Mission of the United Nations.

He was one of the legal minds that contributed to the resolutions that ultimately led to the removal of Libya president Muammar Gaddafi.

In 2011, he was appointed to serve as a special rapporteur at the UN International Law Commission. He was subsequently re-elected by the UN in 2016.

Amid the uncertainty and global panic over the deadly coronavirus, the pandemic has opened more doors for the professor. He will now be giving his input on the legalities surrounding the worldwide coronavirus and said he hoped to clarify how to beat the spread of the virus while protecting human rights.

“For me, this is an important opportunity to contribute to the development of international law in an area not properly regulated by international law.

“There are rules which could have an impact and how these rules come together is not clear.”

He has already started here at home, having since written to President Cyril Ramaphosa about the brutality of soldiers and police officers against citizens during the lockdown.

“I watched videos and pictures on social media depicting violence by the military and police and it was inhumane, degrading punishment, like making people do frog jumps.

“I then wrote a letter to the president, noting my concern at some of these things and questioning whether or not they are consistent, not only with the constitution, but with obligations by South Africa and international law.

“It’s these kinds of issues that the [pandemics and international law] commission will address.”

– rorisangk@citizen.co.za

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.