Associate Professor, Institute of Marine and Environmental Law, University of Cape Town
Melanie Jean Murcott is an associate professor of law at the Institute of Marine and Environmental Law, University of Cape Town. She holds an LLB from the University of Cape Town, and an LLM (Constitutional and Administrative Law) from the University of Pretoria (both with distinction). She obtained her LLD (Constitutional Law) from North-West University in 2020. Before joining academia in 2012, Melanie practised as an attorney, including at Hogan Lovells (South Africa) where she was a partner. From 2012 to 2023, Melanie taught and engaged in research at the University of Pretoria. She authored Transformative Environmental Constitutionalism (Brill, 2022), a significant monograph which develops a novel approach to the adjudication of disputes concerning environmental protection, given that we face a planetary crisis with myriad justice implications. Melanie believes, as Maya Angelou says: “no one of us can be free until everybody is free”. Importantly for Melanie, a flourishing environment creates the necessary conditions for freedom since humans and the environment are fundamentally connected.
South African court said no to new coal-fired power: what’s behind the ruling
Apr 12, 2025 10:02 am UTC| Insights & Views Governance
Three South African environmental and climate justice organisations took the South African government to court in November 2021, to challenge the authorisation of new coal-fired power as part of the countrys energy mix....