Prof Sandra Liebenberg is a Distinguished Professor and the HF Oppenheimer Chair in Human Rights Law, where she teaches and supervises students in human rights law at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Her research focuses on economic, social, and cultural rights as well as the rights to equality and nondiscrimination, a healthy environment, and sustainable development. She also organises the Faculty’s Annual Human Rights Lecture Series, which is in its 17th year. 

From 1995 to 1996 she was appointed to the four-member Legal Technical Committee advising South Africa’s Constitutional Assembly on the drafting of the Bill of Rights in the post-apartheid 1996 Constitution. She served as Chair of this Technical Committee. She was one of the two lead drafters of the Principles and Guidelines of the Implementation of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights adopted in 2010 by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. 

She is a former member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2017 2020), and served as Vice-Chair of this body from 2019 to 2020. During her term on CESCR, she was the Committee’s first Rapporteur on follow-up to Concluding Observations; served on its Working Group on Communications; and was co-rapporteur on the Statement, “The pledge to leave no one behind: the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”; as well as the forthcoming General Comment on the economic, social, and cultural rights and sustainable development. She is currently serving as Chair of the Maastricht IV Drafting Committee, an international research and advocacy project to prepare Principles and Guidelines on the Human Rights of Future Generations along with a comprehensive legal commentary. 

She has published widely in the field of socio-economic rights, including: The South African Constitution from a Gender Perspective (1995 – editor); Socio-Economic Rights: Adjudication under a Transformative Constitution (2010– sole-authored monograph); and Law and Poverty: Perspectives from South Africa and Beyond (2011 – co-edited with Prof G Quinot). She has also been involved in public interest litigation, human rights training and education, and advice to State institutions, government departments, inter-governmental organisations and civil society organisations for several years. 

In 2022, she received an A1 rating from South Africa’s National Research Foundation for her research in the field of socioeconomic rights. A-Rated researchers are unequivocally recognised by their peers as leading international scholars in their respective fields, for the high quality and impact of their recent research.