The University of the Western Cape (UWC) will confer an honorary doctorate on Advocate Adila Hassim SC on Friday, 28 August 2026, recognising more than two decades of public interest litigation on behalf of people whose rights have often been difficult to assert. The university says the award reflects Hassim’s sustained commitment to social justice, human rights and using the law to serve people with the least access to power. Her career has included major cases involving access to healthcare, education, occupational disease and mental healthcare, as well as her more recent role on South Africa’s legal team at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in proceedings against Israel under the Genocide Convention.
According to UWC, two aspects of Hassim’s career were particularly important in its decision. The first was her domestic record in constitutional, health and human rights litigation, including work on behalf of patients, learners, mineworkers and mental healthcare users. The second was her role in January 2024 as one of the lawyers who represented South Africa before the ICJ in its case against Israel. The university said it did not see these as separate achievements but as part of a continuous commitment to using the law on behalf of people and communities with limited power.
Hassim’s public interest legal career began with the AIDS Law Project, where she was involved in litigation over access to HIV treatment at a time when access to antiretroviral treatment was being contested at the highest levels. Her work later expanded into education, healthcare and other areas of social justice. She went on to become a founding director of SECTION27, which was established in 2010 and served as its director of litigation. The organisation says Hassim helped shape its approach to public interest law by combining litigation with research, advocacy and mobilisation to pursue wider social change.
During her time at SECTION27, Hassim was involved in several cases concerning the rights of vulnerable communities. This included litigation concerning access to antiretroviral treatment in prisons, the delivery of textbooks in Limpopo, school infrastructure and tuberculosis. Her work on the Limpopo textbooks matter reached the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2015 and concerned the state’s constitutional obligation to provide basic education. She was also involved in litigation concerning occupational lung disease among mineworkers, including the 2015 silicosis class action in which SECTION27 represented Sonke Gender Justice and the Treatment Action Campaign.
However, it was her work on the Life Esidimeni disaster that SECTION27 identified as one of the defining periods of Hassim’s career. Hassim served as lead counsel during the 2017 Life Esidimeni arbitration, representing SECTION27 and families of mental healthcare users who died after the Gauteng health department moved patients from Life Esidimeni facilities to various NGOs. The deaths exposed serious failures in the provision of mental healthcare and prompted a national debate about accountability and the rights of people living with mental illness. SECTION27 said Hassim’s strategic and advocacy skills, together with her strong sense of justice, were pivotal in the organisation’s efforts to seek justice for those who died and their families.
“Adila has contributed massively to public interest law and to how we practise it at SECTION27 and in the sector,” the organisation said. “We are so proud and thrilled that she has been awarded this well-deserved honour,” SECTION27 said. Hassim’s work had helped demonstrate the value of combining legal action with research, advocacy and mobilisation, rather than treating litigation as an end in itself. Her contribution, it said, extended beyond individual cases and helped shape the way public interest law is practised in South Africa.
Hassim’s appearance before the ICJ in January 2024 brought her work onto the international stage. She was one of six counsel representing South Africa in its application against Israel under the Genocide Convention, in which South Africa alleged that Israel’s conduct in Gaza breached its obligations under the convention. The ICJ subsequently issued provisional measures directing Israel to take steps to prevent acts within the scope of the Genocide Convention and to facilitate humanitarian assistance. The case remains before the court and the merits have not been finally determined.
UWC was careful to distinguish between recognising Hassim’s advocacy and suggesting that the ICJ has reached a final finding in the case. “The university is conscious that the matter remains before the court and that no ruling on the merits has been made,” it said. “What UWC recognises is the quality and courage of the advocacy, not a verdict that has yet to be delivered.” The distinction is significant because the honorary doctorate is being awarded while the international proceedings remain ongoing.
For UWC, Hassim’s work also reflects the university’s own history and its understanding of social justice. The institution was established under apartheid to serve a designated population group but became an important site of resistance to apartheid and developed a strong institutional identity around social justice and the interests of communities marginalised by the system. The university says this history continues to influence how it understands solidarity and its responsibility to speak against injustice, including beyond South Africa’s borders.
“In recognising Advocate Hassim, UWC recognises a lawyer who has argued that case at the highest court available to her, and who has spent the rest of her career doing the same work at home,” the university said. Hassim’s legal career also includes time as a law clerk at the Constitutional Court, where she worked for former justices Pius Langa and Edwin Cameron, before being admitted to the Johannesburg Society of Advocates in 2003. Her academic work includes publications on health law and policy, including two co-authored books and articles in the South African Journal on Human Rights.
UWC said Hassim’s nomination was made in accordance with the university’s procedures and was approved by its council. The university did not disclose who initially nominated her. It said, however, that the decision was based on the broader contribution of her career rather than on a single case or recent achievement, with her domestic public-interest work and international advocacy viewed as part of the same commitment to social justice.
The honorary doctorate, therefore, comes as recognition of a career that has repeatedly placed the law at the service of people with limited power. From access to HIV treatment and textbooks to the rights of mineworkers and mental healthcare users, Hassim’s work has involved challenging institutions over their obligations to the people they serve. For UWC and SECTION27, her recognition reflects not only the prominence of her recent work at the ICJ but also the longer record of public-interest law that brought her to that courtroom in the first place.