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The 2012 South Africa program will run from Monday, May 28, 2012, until June 15, 2012.
There will be an opening braai (BBQ) on Sunday evening, May 27, 2012.
Estimated Enrollment
As of March 27, 2012, twenty-five U.S. students had enrolled in the program. In addition, four attorneys have signed up for the first week of the program. We hope to have between twenty and thirty students, candidate attorneys, and attorney from Southern Africa.
Partnership with the University of the Witwatersrand
Seattle University and the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) are equal partners in the South Africa program. The classes are taught by professors from both universities and the classes are open to qualified students from both universities. In addition, Wits provide space for the program in the wing of law faculty building that houses the Mandela Institute, and the Mandela Institute provides administrative and technical support.
Courses
This year, we are offering five courses. All of the U.S. students must take the first course, South African Law, Policy, and History: Apartheid, Democracy, and the Future," a one-week, one-credit course. Students will then choose/be assigned to one of the four other courses, which are two-week, two-credit courses.
South African Law, Policy, and History: Apartheid, Democracy, and the Future
Credits: 1 credit
Dates: May 28, 2012, - June 1, 2012
Times: All day. Part of the day will be devoted to lectures and discussions and part of the
day to trips to the courts, museums, and law clinic
Professors: Mtende Mhango, Wits; Mimi Samuel, Seattle University; Laurel Oates, Seattle
University
Assessment: Class participation and a final paper, due August 1, 2012
During the first week of the program (May 28, 2012, - June 1, 2012), all of the U.S. students will take a one-credit course titled "South African Law, Policy, and History: Apartheid, Democracy, and the Future. While Professors Mimi Samuel and Laurel Oates coordinate this course, Professor Mhango and other professors from Wits will provide most of the content, presenting lectures and facilitating discussions about South Africa's history, South Africa's legal system, and the legal, economic, and social issues that South Africa now faces. These lectures and discussions will be supplemented by trips to the Apartheid Museum, the Constitutional Court, the Magistrate's Court, and a legal clinic.
Cross-Cultural Communication
Credits: 2 credits
Dates: June 4, 2012, - June 15, 2012
Times: M-F, 3 hours a day
Professors: Professor Mimi Samuel, Seattle University, and Laurel Oates, Seattle University Prerequisites: None
Limits on
enrolment: 12
Assessment: Class participation, response papers, and seminar paper, which is due July 31, 2012
After exploring the theoretical underpinnings of cross-cultural communication in the legal context, students will have the opportunity to both observe and participate in client interviews and intakes at the Wits University Law Clinic. To start, students will receive a lecture about a particular area of South African law, for example, family law or refugee law. Students will then explore how differences in culture, language, and tradition affect the lawyer-client relationship and how lawyers can most effectively communicate with clients from differing cultures and backgrounds. Armed with these skills, students will first observe staff from the Wits Law Clinic interview clients, and they will then conduct interviews themselves. In addition, because South Africa has 11 official languages, the course will also focus on the posed by the use of interpreters, and students will visit local magistrates' courts to see the role that interpreters play. Finally, students will select a topic relating to cross-cultural communication and write a 10-15 page seminar paper, which will be due on July 31, 2012.
Human Rights and the Market Place
Credits: 2 credits
Dates: June 4, 2012, - June 15, 2012
Times: M-F, 3 hours a day
Professors: Bonita Meyersfeld, Wits
Prerequisites: None
Limits on
enrolment: None
Assessment: Class project and exam
During this course, Professor Meyersfeld will help students understand and assess the ways in which human rights law has penetrated the market and begun to affect the behaviour of economic factors, including international financial institutions, multinational corporations, the UN and human rights activists. More specifically, in this course students will study
- The impact of multinational corporations on human rights, particularly in the developing world;
- The extent to which multinationals should be regulated by international law and the role of transnational legal norms in promoting corporate accountability for human rights; and
- Policy considerations for the future of global trade, international investment and finance, corporate governance and economic development.
International Dispute Resolution
Credits: 2 credits
Dates: June 4, 2012, - June 15, 2012
Times: M-F, 3 hours a day
Professors: Won Kidane, Seattle University
Prerequisites: None
Limits
on enrolment: None
Assessment: In-class exam and seminar paper
This course is designed to describe, analyze and evaluate current global trends in alternative dispute resolution (ADR). It is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of mediation and other forms of ADR in both key national jurisdictions and in cross-border contexts. It considers future international dispute resolution options which can be anticipated in the development of globalization.
The Law of Globalization
Dates: June 4, 2012, - June 15, 2012
Times: M-F, 3 hours a day
Professors: Laurence Boulle, Wits, and Mark Chinen, Seattle University
Prerequisites: None
Limits
On enrolment: None
Assessment: Short essays and seminar paper
This course is designed to examine critically the role of law, legal regulation and governance in the global political economy. It is designed to provide internationally transferrable knowledge and to develop a sense of local and global responsibility. The course is targeted primarily at law students but is not a "hard law" subject and can be successfully taken by students with backgrounds in economics or international relations.
Grading
The acceptance of any credit or grade for any course taken in the program is subject to determination by the student's home school.
The Program Directors
The program directors are Professors Mimi Samuel and Laurel Oates, both of whom have previously taught in and directed the program and who have extensive experience teaching. To see Professor Samuel vitae, click here. To see Professor Oates vitae, click here. In addition, see their biographies, which are set out below.
Professors' Biographies
Laurence Boulle
Professor and Deputy Dean, Bond University, Australia
Honorary Professor, School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
BA, University of Natal; LLB, Stellenbosch University
LLM, University of London; PhD, University of Natal.
Laurence Boulle was educated at the Universities of Natal, Stellenbosch and London. He is an Advocate of the High Court of South Africa and began his career in the Office of the Attorney General, Pietermaritzburg. His first academic appointment was at the then University of Natal, Durban, where he served as Dean for two and a half years. He has held positions at the University of Adelaide and Bond University, where he served as Acting Dean and Chair of Academic Senate. He was the Director of the Mandela Institute and Issy Wolfson Professor of Law between July 2009 and November 2012.
Laurence's research and publication interests have been in constitutional and administrative law, employment law, mediation & ADR, and international trade and the law of globalization. His latest book, The Law of Globalization, will be published by Kluwer Law International in late 2009.
As a practitioner Laurence has been an accredited mediator for the past 20 years and has been a consultant to governments, organizations, law firms and the professions in conflict management, negotiation and dispute systems design.
Mark Chinen
Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law
B.A., cum laude, Pomona College, 1981
M.Div., magna cum laude, Yale Divinity School, 1984
J.D., cum laude, Harvard Law School, 1988
Harvard International Law Review associate editor
Professor Chinen, a professor of law at Seattle University, practiced for seven years with the Washington, D.C., firm of Covington & Burling, focusing on corporate transactions, securities, banking and international trade. He teaches contracts and various courses in international law.
Won Kidane
Associate Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law
LL.B, Addis Ababa University, 1993
LL.M in International and Comparative Law, University of Georgia, 1997
J.D. with Honors, University of Illinois College of Law, 2001
Professor Kidane teaches and writes in the areas of international arbitration and litigation, international and comparative law, and immigration law and also teaches in the Law School's clinic. Professor Kidane has published a comprehensive book on dispute settlement in China-Africa economic relations. Prior to joining the Seattle University faculty, Professor Kidane practiced law in Washington D.C. with the Law firm of Piper Rudnick (now DLA-Piper) and later Hunton & Williams. Before his practice in Washington, D.C., Professor Kidane worked as a legal officer in association with the African regional office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Mtende Mhango
Associate Professor, School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
He studied government, history and the law at Morehead State University, Michigan State University College of Law, Wayne State University Law School, and the University of Cape Town
Associate Professor, School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
He studied government, history and the law at Morehead State University, Michigan State University College of Law, Wayne State University Law School and the University of Cape Town.
Mtende Mhango's primary research interests are in the fields of pension law and constitutional law. He serves on the editorial board of Malawi Law Journal and South African Journal on Human Rights, and teaches pension and constitutional law.
Bonita Meyersfeld
Associate Professor, School of Law, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
BA, University of Stellenbosch
LLB, University of Witwatersrand
LLM, Yale Law School
JSD, Yale Law School
Bonita Meyersfeld is an Associate Professor of Law and the Head of Gender at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies. Bonita's areas of work include public international law, national and international human rights law, gender, business and human rights, national and international criminal law and animal law. Bonita is currently teaching Public International Law and Human Rights in the Marketplace. Bonita is an editor of the South African Journal on Human Rights.
Prior to her position at Wits she worked as a legal advisor in the House of Lords in the UK where she worked on matters such as advising the Ministry of Justice on the adoption of a written constitution and a bill of rights; the implementation of international criminal law in the United Kingdom and the retrospective application of the Rome Statute; international human rights law and business and human rights. She has contributed to the work of the UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights on matters relating to gender. During this period she was also a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics in the Faculty of Law, Centre for Human Rights.
Bonita's past work experience includes positions at Interights in London, the International Centre for Transitional Justice in New York and Edward Nathan, Friedland and Sonnenbergs, Knowles Husain & Lindsey Inc and POWA in South Africa.
Laurel Currie Oates
Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law
J.D. University of Puget Sound School of Law
ABD, University of Washington School of Education
Professor Laurel Oates is the Director of Seattle University's Legal Writing Program, which has been ranked by U.S. and World Reports as the top legal writing program in the United States. Professor Oates is one of the co-founders of the Legal Writing Institute, which has more than 2000 members from more than 150 law, and she is the co-author of five books, including The Legal Writing Handbook, which is now in its fifth edition, and Just Research, Just Memos, Just Briefs, Just Writing, and a Practice Book. Since 2003, Professor Oates has taught in a number of countries, including Uganda, South Africa, India, China, and most recently, Afghanistan. In June 2007, Professor Oates received the Burton Award for Outstanding Contributions to Legal Writing Education at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C.
Mimi Samuel
Associate Professor of Lawyering Skills
A.B., Georgetown University, 1984
J.D., cum laude, Georgetown University Law Center, 1990
International Academy of Trial Lawyers Award for Advocacy
American Jurisprudence Award for Excellence in Evidence
After law school, Professor Samuel practiced business litigation for eight years, first in Washington, D.C., at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, and then in San Francisco, at Thelen Marin Johnson & Bridges. An avid traveler, Professor Samuel has taught in Russia, India, Sri Lanka, Uganda, Kenya, and South Africa. In addition, Professor Samuel co-organized the Conference on the Pedagogy of Legal Writing for Academics in Nairobi, Kenya, which brought academics from the U.S. together with academics from East Africa. For the last five years, Professor Samuel has served as the co-President of APPEAL, and organization dedicated to promoting the teaching of legal writing and the exchange of information among academics in the U.S. and Africa. In 2009, APPEAL sponsored a conference at the University of Pretoria and in 2011 it sponsored a conference at the University of Zululand.
Costs
Tuition $2,625.00 $875/credit (2010 rate)
Program Fee $ 900.00 Includes all field trips, program meals, airport
transportation, some course materials, local
transfers, medical insurance & orientation
Housing $1,050.00 3 weeks in guest house (estimated)Meals $ 735.00 $35/day x 21days
Airfare $ 1,500.00 estimated
TOTAL ESTIMATED
EXPENSE $6,810.00
Contact Information
Wits:
Magda Van Noordwyk
Tel No: +27 11 717 8435
Fax No: 086 553 5581
E-mail: mandela.institute@wits.ac.za
Seattle University:
Junsen Ohno
+1 206-398-4283
ohnoj@seattleu.edu
Classrooms
All of the classes will be held at Oliver Schreiner School of Law. Most of the classes will be taught in the lecture hall or seminar rooms that are part of the Mandela Institute, which is in one wing of the School of Law. The faculty and administrative offices are in the Law School building.
Housing and Meals
We are currently making arrangements for students to stay in guesthouse in Melville, which is about 3 miles from campus. The rooms in the guesthouses are nicer than dorm rooms in the United States. For an additional charge, students can reserve a single room or a deluxe room at the same or a different guesthouse in the same neighborhood.
The guesthouses provide breakfast and lunches are available for a reasonable price at cafes on the Wits campus. The program fee includes several dinners, including the opening braai (BBQ) and the closing dinner and approximately one dinner a week with a guest speaker. Students are responsible for all other dinners.
Access
Although all of the classrooms provide wheelchair access, not all part of the campus and the city are accessible. If you use a wheelchair or need other accommodation, please contact Junsen Ohno at ohnoj@seattleu.edu.
Cancellation of Program
Because the program has reached its target enrollment, the program will not be cancelled for lack
of enrollment. (It was cancelled in 2011 because not enough students enrolled. ) If other circumstances necessitate cancellation, for example, a natural disaster or the political climate, students enrolled in the program will be notified as soon as possible by email, and the SeattleUniversity faculty will work with the students to make alternative plans. To the extent that costs have not already been incurred, students will receive a refund for trips, housing, and meals.
Department of State Travel Warnings
As of this date, March 22, 2012, there are no travel warnings for South Africa. However, students
should check the State Department website on a regular basis. See the following website:
http://www.travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_1764.html.
Passport and Visa Requirements
The following information is from the State Department website:
South African law requires travelers to have one (1) blank (unstamped) visa page in their passport to enter the country. In practice, however, travelers may need more than one page as there have been instances in the past of South African immigration officers requiring travelers to have two (2) blank pages. You are advised to have at least two blank pages; one for the South African temporary residence permit sticker that is issued upon entry to the country, and an additional page to allow for entry and exit stamps for South Africa and other countries to be visited en route to South Africa or elsewhere in the region.
Travelers without the requisite blank visa pages in their passports may be refused entry into South Africa, fined, and returned to their point of origin at their own expense. South African authorities have denied diplomatic missions access to assist in these cases.
As a general precaution, all travelers are advised to carry a photocopy of the photo/bio information page of their passport and keep it in a location separate from their passport.
