Land restitution and reconciliation in South Africa

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511575419.007

6 - Land restitution and reconciliation in South Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2009

Theunis Roux

Edited by

François du Bois and

Antje du Bois-Pedain

Show author details

François du Bois: Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
Antje du Bois-Pedain: Affiliation:
University of Cambridge

Book contents

Get access

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Schemes of property rights rectification are seldom influenced in the real world by a profound understanding of property theory. Still, the political dynamics that drive such schemes are almost always informed by intuited understandings of the meaning and importance of property rights. And property theorists, for all their abstractions, often attempt to spell out the implications of their theories for real-world problems. It would therefore be surprising if property theory had nothing to say about how schemes of property rights rectification ought to be implemented. It should also be possible to assess such schemes from the perspective of property theory, using competing theoretical understandings of property rights to explain the practical problems encountered, and, conversely, using practical problems to assess the relative merits of competing theoretical understandings.

This chapter aims to construct a dialogue of this sort between Robert Nozick's historical entitlement theory of property and the South African scheme for restitution of land rights. The next section briefly states Nozick's theory before contrasting it with its main theoretical rival: ‘general-right-based’ arguments for private property. Because of their concern for the connection between property rights and personality, it is argued, general-right-based arguments provide a more convincing explanation of the moral wrong done to property holders when their rights are unjustly taken away. They also suggest an approach to the rectification of past unjust transfers that has much in common with the idea of restorative justice.

Type: Chapter
Information: Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Apartheid South Africa , pp. 144 - 171

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511575419.007 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Munzer, Stephen R., A Theory of Property (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) at 317–469.CrossRef Google Scholar

Nozick, Robert, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974).Google Scholar

Becker, L.C., Property Rights: Philosophic Foundations (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977);Google Scholar

Macpherson, C.B. (ed.), Property: Mainstream and Critical Positions (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1978);

Pennock, J.R. and Chapman, J.W. (eds.), Nomos XXII: Property (New York: New York University Press, 1980);

Ryan, Alan, Property and Political Theory (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1984);Google Scholar

Reeve, Andrew, Property (London: MacMillan, 1985);Google Scholar

Grunebaum, James O., Private Ownership (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987).Google Scholar

Waldron, Jeremy, The Right to Private Property (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) at 116.Google Scholar

Hegel, G.W.F., Elements of the Philosophy of Right, trans. Nisbet, H.B. and edited by Wood, Allen W. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).Google Scholar

Wolff, Jonathan, Robert Nozick: Property, Justice and the Minimal State (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991).Google Scholar

Waldron, Jeremy, ‘Redressing Historic Injustice’ (2002) 52 University of Toronto Law Journal 135 at 144.CrossRef Google Scholar

Paul, Jeffrey (ed.), Reading Nozick: Essays on ‘Anarchy, State, and Utopia’ (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1982)

Green, T.H., Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1931).Google Scholar

Radin, argaret Jane, ‘Property and Personhood’ (1982) 34 Stanford Law Review957.CrossRef Google Scholar

Roche, Declan, Accountability in Restorative Justice (Oxford University Press, 2003);Google Scholar

Strang, Heather, Repair or Revenge: Victims and Restorative Justice (Oxford University Press, 2002).Google Scholar

Llewellyn, Jennifer J., ‘Dealing with the Legacy of Native Residential School Abuse in Canada: Litigation, ADR, and Restorative Justice’ (2002) 52 University of Toronto Law Journal253;CrossRef Google Scholar

Strang, Heather and Braithwaite, John (eds.), Restorative Justice and Civil Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)

Roche, Declan (ed.), Restorative Justice (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004).

Klug, Heinz, Constituting Democracy: Law, Globalism and South Africa's Political Reconstruction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).CrossRef Google Scholar

Chaskalson, Matthew, ‘Stumbling Towards Section 28: Negotiations Over the Protection of Property Rights in the Interim Constitution’ (1995) 11 South African Journal on Human Rights222.CrossRef Google Scholar

Budlender, Geoff and Latsky, Johan, ‘Unravelling Rights to Land and to Agricultural Activity in Rural Race Zones’ (1990) 6 South African Journal on Human Rights155.CrossRef Google Scholar

Paul, Ellen Frankel, Miller, Fred D. and Paul, Jeffrey (eds.), Property Rights (Cambridge University Press, 1994) 85 at 86.

Jenkins, Catherine, ‘After the Dry White Season: The Dilemmas of Reparation and Reconstruction in South Africa’ (2000) 16 South African Journal on Human Rights 415 at 451CrossRef Google Scholar

Rwelamira, Medard and Werle, Gerhard (eds.), Confronting Past Injustices: Approaches to Amnesty, Punishment, Reparation and Restitution in South Africa and Germany (Durban: Butterworths, 1996) 113 at 121).

Roux, Theunis, ‘Pro-poor Court, Anti-poor Outcomes: Explaining the Performance of the South African Land Claims Court’ (2004) 20 South African Journal on Human Rights511.CrossRef Google Scholar

Boraine, Alex, A Country Unmasked: Inside South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) at 351Google Scholar

James, Wilmot and Vijver, Linda (eds.), After the TRC: Reflections on Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001) 191 at 195

Villa-Vicencio, Charles and Verwoerd, Wilhelm (eds.), Looking Back Reaching Forward: Reflections on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa (Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press, 2000) at 80, 157–8 and 240–1

Wilson, Richard A., The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Legitimizing the Post-Apartheid State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)CrossRef Google Scholar

Platzky, Laurine and Walker, Cheryl, The Surplus People: Forced Removals in South Africa (Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1985).Google Scholar

Plessis, Max du and Pete, Steve (eds.), Repairing the Past? International Perspectives on Reparations for Gross Human Rights Violations (Antwerp: Intersentia, 2007).