Jonathan Klaaren
PhD in Sociology - Yale University
Professor
1 Jan Smuts Avenue,
Braamfontein 2000,
Johannesburg,
South Africa
Jonathan Klaaren is a Professor in the School of Law at the University of the Witwatersrand, with a joint appointment at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER), whose research spans regulation, competition policy, the legal profession, migration and citizenship, and Southern African studies. He holds a BA from Harvard, a JD from Columbia (where he edited the Columbia Human Rights Law Review and won the James A. Elkins Prize), an LLB from Wits, an MA in Religious Studies from UCT, and a PhD in sociology from Yale, and he clerked for U.S. Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr. Since joining Wits in 1993, he has taught a wide range of subjects including constitutional, administrative, international trade, competition, refugee, and jurisprudence law, and held leadership roles as Director of the Mandela Institute (2005–2007), Dean/Head of School (2010–2013), and co-founder of the Winter Law School with Seattle Law School. His scholarly output includes three books, ten edited volumes or special issues, 48 peer-reviewed articles, and 35 book chapters, supported by work with WiSER, the Centre for Competition, Regulation and Economic Development, and the Public Affairs Research Institute, and he has supervised eleven PhD students to completion. He is also active in the Law & Society Association, where he co-founded the African Law and Society research network and co-chaired the 2020 Annual Meeting, and he served as an Acting High Court Judge in 2016.