In this week’s post, Michelle Barnard examines who should bear responsibility for plastic pollution in South Africa, focusing on producers and consumers within the framework of Sustainable Development Goal 12. She analyses existing legal and policy instruments, including extended producer responsibility and recycling initiatives, and highlights gaps in consumer-focused strategies. In this piece, she argues for a more balanced approach that combines producer obligations with stronger consumer-driven measures to effectively reduce plastic waste.

In this week’s post, Everlyn K. Muendo from Tax Justice Network Africa argues that the UN Tax Convention has the potential to develop more equitable rules about the allocation of taxing rights between the global North and global South and in so doing may enable African countries in particular to raise more tax revenue to resource socio-economic rights and comply with their obligation to devote their maximum resources available towards the realisation of these rights.

In this week’s post, Professor Franaaz Khan explores the potential development of the reasonableness standard in the South African law of delict in order to accomodate the distinctive cognitive abilities of neurotypical individuals arguing that reasonableness does not exist in a vacuum but should be contextual. She argues that the need to develop the common law in line with the spirit purport and objects of the Bill of rights particularly advancing the rights to dignity and equality necessitate such a shift in doctrine.