David Bilchitz
Professor of Fundamental Rights and Constitutional Law, University of Johannesburg
Professor of Law, University of Reading; Director, South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International law
Vice-President, International Association of Constitutional Law
Presentation Title: Transforming Non-Human Animals From Objects to Subjects: Constitutional Opportunities in South Africa
David Bilchitz is a Professor of Fundamental Rights and Constitutional Law at the University of Johannesburg and Director of the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law (SAIFAC). He is also a part-time Professor of Law at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. He was appointed as an Acting Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa from February to May 2024, the first full-time academic to have been appointed directly to act as judge on the Court in over 20 years.
He was Secretary-General of the International Association of Constitutional Law from 2013 to 2020 and is now a Vice-President of the Association. He was also chief organiser of the World Congress of Constitutional Law which brought constitutional academics from around the world to Johannesburg in 2022. He is also a Member of the Academy of Sciences of South Africa. He was awarded a Von Humboldt Foundation Fellowship in 2017 and between August 2017 and August 2018, served as a Visiting Research Professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He has a BA (Hons) LLB cum laude from the University of the Witwatersrand and an MPhil and PhD from the University of Cambridge.
Bilchitz has 2 monographs, 5 co-edited books, 1 textbook, 29 book chapters and 41 journal articles. His writing covers a range of topics including writings on proportionality, socio-economic rights, business and fundamental rights, the separation of powers, the rights of non-human animals, the tension between religion and equality and LGBT+ rights. He has also developed a blog – African Law Matters – for the discussion and advancement of fundamental rights on the African continent.
In relation to animal law, Prof Bilchitz has written several seminal articles that consider the possibilities that South Africa’s new constitution provides for a change in the status and legal entitlements of animals. He has also sought to put his ideas into practice – he is a director of Animal Law Reform South Africa which seeks to shift the approach towards animals in South Africa. He played a role in the moratorium on elephant culling and has been involved actively in trying to change the plight of animals in South Africa through parliamentary submissions and litigation. He has also co-taught the first course on animal law in South Africa.