Marius Pieterse

I am a professor of law at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, where I teach urban and local government law, constitutional law and human rights law at LLB and LLM level, and supervise undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral research.

I hold the degrees BLC (cum laude), LLB (cum laude) and LLM in Fundamental Rights and Constitutional Practice (cum laude) from the University of Pretoria, as well as a PhD from the University of the Witwatersrand. 

I am the author of two academic monographs as well as more than 80 peer reviewed academic papers (including journal articles, book chapters, working papers and the like), published both locally and internationally.

I hold a B2 rating from the South African National Research Foundation (NRF), which reflects “considerable international recognition for the high quality and impact of [my] recent research outputs”. In 2024, I was the joint recipient of the Vice Chancellor’s Research Award, the highest accolade for research at the University of the Witwatersrand.

I am the joint global coordinator of the International Research Group on Law and Urban Space (IRGLUS), co-convenor of the International Association of Constitutional Law research group “The Constitutional Status of Cities” and a member of the Association of Urban Legal Scholars (AULS) and the International Law Association‘s committee on urbanisation and international law.

From 1 September until 31 October 2025 I am a visiting academic at the UCL Faculty of Laws in London. I was an individual research fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) in Amsterdam from September 2022 until January 2023. From 13 July until 4 August 2025, I returned to NIAS for a 3-week “alumni summer stay”.  I was also a visiting research fellow at the World Trade Institute in Bern in November-December 2017 and have been an invited short-term academic visitor at the Urban Studies Institute at the University of Antwerp (2022), the Norwegian Centre for Human Rights at the University of Oslo (2023) and the Faculty of Law at Freie Universität Berlin (2023).

I have collaborated with and/or done research-related consulting work for international organisations, government departments, academic institutions, applied research institutions and non-governmental organisations.

I am an admitted advocate of the High Court of South Africa.

I am fluent in English and Afrikaans and have basic knowledge of French and Dutch.