Honorable Just David Smuts of the Supreme Court of Namibia in conversation about his new book
Thursday, October 17, 2019 · 6:10 PM
Room 753 Schermerhorn Extension, Columbia University
No registration required
Honorable Just David F. Smuts is Namibia’s most renowned human rights lawyer. In the 1980s, Smuts took on South Africa’s apartheid regime, and brought the case that freed detainees illegally held for six years in dark spot prisons deep in Angola. His fight against the torture of liberation fighters and against corruption in the judicial and political systems earned him international renown and local respect.
Smuts, a graduate of Harvard Law School, was appointed to the High Court of Namibia in 2010 and the Supreme Court of Namibia in 2015, and was a founder of the Legal Assistance Centre, formed to fight the abuses of the apartheid government in Namibia. He also co-founded that country’s first independent newspaper, The Namibian. In 2019, he was elected as an international honorary member to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Join us in conversation about Justice Smuts’s new book, Death, Detention and Disappearance (Tafelberg, 2019).
Hosted by The Barnard College Department of Africana Studies and Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Theory.
Co-sponsored by the Committee on Global Thought and the Office of the Executive Vice President of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University.