David Bilchitz

David Bilchitz is a Professor of Law at the University of Reading. He is also Professor of Fundamental Rights and Constitutional Law in the Faculty of Law at the University of Johannesburg and Director of the South African Institute for Advanced Constitutional, Public, Human Rights and International Law (SAIFAC).  In October 2023, the President of the Republic of South Africa appointed him as an Acting Justice of the Constitutional Court for the first term of 2024.

He was the Secretary-General of the International Association of Constitutional Law (IACL) from 2013-2020 and is now a Vice-President of the Association. He was elected as a member of the Academy of Sciences of South Africa in 2020. He was awarded a Von Humboldt Foundation Georg Forster Fellowship in 2017 which enabled him to take up the position of  Visiting Research Professor at the Humboldt University in Berlin between August 2017 and August 2018. He has also been a Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore and a Visiting Research Professor at the Minerva Centre for Human Rights, University of Tel Aviv.

Prof Bilchitz has written extensively on a range of topics in the field of constitutional law and fundamental rights with a recent monograph ‘Fundamental Rights and the Legal Obligations of Business’ (Cambridge University Press) and a previous monograph titled ‘Poverty and Fundamental Rights’ (Oxford University Press).

In addition to these books, Professor Bilchitz has 5 co-edited books, 1 textbook (on Jurisprudence), 28 book chapters and 41 journal articles.

Professor Bilchitz has also taught at leading institutions across the world as well as presenting at numerous conferences both in South Africa and internationally.