Highlights from the Office of the Chief State Law Adviser (International Law)

Abstract

The Office of the Chief State Law Adviser (International Law) is privileged to share this overview of its work in 2012 with the wider South African and international law community. As with previous contributions, it will broadly follow the contours of the strategic foreign policy objectives of the South African government. It will both focus on the ongoing projects that the Office is dealing with, and highlight some of the more interesting and classic international law topics that the Law Advisers had to address in opinions, and which again illustrate the close relationship between contemporary international developments, and the work of advisers on international law in foreign ministries. South Africa was a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in 2012, and this necessitated a close working relationship between the Office and the Legal Counsellor to the South African Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York, especially where statements to the Security Council on matters serving before it had to be compiled and approved, often on an urgent basis.