Simon Mateus is an LLD candidate under the NRF SARChI Chair for International Constitutional Law.

He holds an LLB (cum laude), an LLM (cum laude) from the University of Pretoria and has a fellowship with the Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa (Centre for Human Rights).

Mateus has undertaken research projects focusing on areas of international law with the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (under the late Prof Christof Heyns), ultimately contributing to the African Commission’s Study on the Use of Force by Law Enforcement Officials in Africa, as well as the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, in particular, contributing to the study on Peaceful Assemblies involving children, conducting qualitative and quantitative research related to children’s right to the freedom of peaceful assembly per article 15 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

LLD Thesis research focus: The duty to eradicate poverty (and its prospects) as a peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens)

The topic of poverty eradication alongside peremptory norms of general international law has received somewhat limited to no attention in scholarly literature. A general survey of the existing literature on this subject suggests that although a great deal has been written on jus cogens and poverty as separate topics, there is a paucity of literature that comprehensively and effectively addresses the role of jus cogens relating to the fight against poverty. While the eradication of poverty has been recognised as an international community interest, very little attention has been paid to the idea of jus cogens in combating poverty, including the question of whether the fight against poverty has acquired the status of jus cogens and the implication that this would have on States if it were so. Simon's study seeks to assess whether we have reached that point in the development of international law to examine the normative status of the duty to eradicate poverty vis-à-vis peremptory norms of general international law. 

Pending Publications

• S Mateus & Y Luhandjula 'Are we there yet? : The normative advocacy for the assessment of the duty to eradicate poverty as a peremptory norm of general international law (jus cogens)'  - current and ongoing research output. 

Recent Publications

• S Mateus, "Clarifying Jus Cogens, Erga Omnes and the Place of Third-Party Countermeasures in International Law" (2024) Comparative and International Law Journal of Southern Africa 57 (1).
• S Mateus, ‘The relationship between peremptory norms of general international law (jus cogens) and obligations erga omnes’ (2022) South African Yearbook of International Law. 
• S Mateus & K Shange, ‘Broken & Unequal: The South African Education System and the attainment of the right to Basic Education through litigation’ (2021) Pretoria Student Law Review 353 – 369.
• S Mateus, ‘Investigating the extraterritorial application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’ (2021) De Jure Law Journal 70 - 90.
• S Mateus, ‘The feminist agenda, a fall of hierarchal redress or an attempt to establishing an “equal” society gone wrong: an internal critique to feminist theories’ (2019) Pretoria Student Law Review 208 – 222.