Albie Sachs, a 90-year-old freedom fighter appointed by Nelson Mandela to South Africa’s first Constitutional Court, will discuss his life in activism and the law in conversation with Anjli Parrin, head of the Law School's Global Human Rights Clinic and the Pozen Center's Global Human Rights Lab. Introduction by Tom Ginsburg, Leo Spitz Distinguished Service Professor of International Law in the Law School, Ludwig and Hilde Wolf Research Scholar, Professor in the Department of Political Science.
Lunch will be provided to those who register.
Albie Sachs is an activist, advocate, writer, and former judge on the Constitutional Court of South Africa (1994 – 2009). He began practicing as an advocate at the Cape Bar at the age of 21, defending people charged under the racial statutes and security laws of apartheid.
After two spells of being detained in solitary confinement without trial, first for five months, then for three months, he went into exile in England, where he completed a PhD at Sussex University. In 1988, he lost his right arm and his sight in one eye when a bomb was placed in his car by South African security agents in Maputo, Mozambique.
After the bombing, he devoted himself to the preparations for a new democratic constitution for South Africa. When he returned home from exile, he served as a member of the Constitutional Committee and the National Executive of the African National Congress until the first democratic elections in 1994. Later that year, he stepped aside from his political activities and was appointed by Nelson Mandela to South Africa’s first Constitutional Court.
Sachs is the founder of the Albie Sachs Trust for Constitutionalism and the Rule of Law and a Board member of the Constitution Hill Trust, both of which promote constitutionalism and the rule of law. He has travelled to many countries, sharing South African experiences that might help heal divided societies.
He is the author of several books, including The Jail Diary of Albie Sachs, Justice in South Africa, Sexism and the Law, Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter, The Strange Alchemy of Life and Law, We, the People: Insights of an Activist Judge, and Oliver Tambo’s Dream.
In February 2025, to mark his 90th birthday, Sachs launched The Albie Collection, an online archive of materials related to his life and work.
Anjli Parrin is a human rights advocate and lawyer. She directs the Law School's Global Human Rights Clinic, which works alongside partners and communities to advance justice and address the inequalities and structural disparities that lead to human rights violations worldwide. (Pozen undergraduates collaborate with these efforts via our Global Human Rights Lab.)
Parrin conducts human rights fact-finding, investigations, and advocacy around the world. Her practice and research focus on the areas of armed conflict and international criminal law, colonialism and its impacts, discrimination and inequality, and socio-economic rights.
Parrin serves as an expert witness and has worked alongside forensic scientists to carry out complex war crime investigations, including for the International Criminal Court; successfully proposed new law on exhumations for hybrid courts; and provided trainings to judges, lawyers, police, gendarmerie, NGOs and victims associations on the law and science of suspicious death investigations. She has also developed programs to advance peer support for human rights advocates around the world, and advocated for action to address racial injustice in the child welfare system in the US.