Fonds AL3299 - Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) Collection

Identity area

Reference code

ZA SAHA AL3299

Title

Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) Collection

Date(s)

  • 2002 (Accumulation)
  • 2002 - 2014 (Accumulation)

Level of description

Fonds

Extent and medium

5 DVDs

Context area

Name of creator

Biographical history

AMSA - ArcelorMittal South Africa

CER - The Centre for Environmental Rights

VEJA - Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance

The Centre for Environmental Rights (CER) is a non-profit company and law clinic based in Cape Town. Established in October 2009 by eight civil society organisations (CSOs) in South Africa’s environmental and environmental justice sector, the CER provides legal and related support to environmental CSOs and communities.

This collection relates to CER's work in promoting transparency and accountability in environmental governance, aimed at testing and assessing the extent to which civil society can access environmental information held by regulators and private entities.

Many of the records included in this collection were released to CER and / or CER partner organisations in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000 (PAIA), such as the Vanderbijlpark Environmental Master Plan, developed by ISCOR from 2000 to 2002 and released by ArcelorMittal South Africa (AMSA) to the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance (VEJA) in 2014 after the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ordered AMSA to do so. The SCA judgment confirmed VEJA’s constitutional right to know the extent and impact of the steel giant’s activities on the Vaal communities’ health and the environment.

The aim of this collection is to establish a proper archive for CER’s third party documents and the next series of documents will include Eskom licences, compliance reports and health studies.

Archival history

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Content and structure area

Scope and content

ArcelorMittal South Africa (AMSA) released the Environmental Master Plan records to the Vaal Environmental Justice Alliance (VEJA) in hard copy. SAHA obtained scanned copies of the records from CER on five DVDs and through Dropbox. Scanned records will be accessible on the SAHA website, while print copies of the records can be consulted in the SAHA reading room.

Appraisal, destruction and scheduling

Accruals

System of arrangement

Conditions of access and use area

Conditions governing access

Minimal access restrictions as majority of materials released in terms of PAIA.

Conditions governing reproduction

Language of material

Script of material

Language and script notes

Physical characteristics and technical requirements

Finding aids

Uploaded finding aid

Allied materials area

Existence and location of originals

Existence and location of copies

Related units of description

Related descriptions

Notes area

Alternative identifier(s)

Access points

Subject access points

Place access points

Name access points

Genre access points

Description control area

Description identifier

Institution identifier

Rules and/or conventions used

Status

Level of detail

Dates of creation revision deletion

20150612

Language(s)

Script(s)

Sources

Accession area

Related subjects

Related people and organizations

Related genres

Related places