Martin van Staden
https://www.martinvanstaden.com
Dr Martin van Staden is the Head of Policy at the Free Market Foundation and Editor of the Race Law Project at the South African Institute of Race Relations. He earned a Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) from the University of Pretoria and is widely published and featured on popular and academic platforms. Van Staden additionally serves as a director of both the Hayek Council for a Free World and the Free Speech Union SA, and as a fellow at both the Consumer Choice Center and Initiative for African Trade and Prosperity. Visit www.martinvanstaden.com for more.
Articles By This Author
Treat stateproofing as an asset, not a risk
A recent article in The Conversation highlights a growing trend in South Africa: ordinary people, from the impoverished shacks of Imizamo Yethu to the affluent
The insidiousness of universal digital identification
Few tools have been as seductive as the promise of a universal identification system that the state can at will rely upon to enforce its
Doomsday coalition’s EWC in action: where is the GNU firewall?
When the business group Sakeliga revealed the details surrounding the ongoing Driefontein expropriation without compensation in Ekurhuleni on 20 September 2025, the only real question
Political violence the inevitable consequence of over-politicisation
The assassination of American conservative pundit Charlie Kirk last week hit me harder than I imagined something like this would. In the time since that
The inseparable union of liberalism and the rule of law
The rise of populist authoritarianism on the right around the world unsurprisingly comes alongside an agenda to characterise liberalism’s achievements as either overstated or harmful,
Cape Town, don’t plead for police powers – just get on with it
As mothers continue to bury their children on the Cape Flats – perhaps the most violent place on the continent – the local Cape Town
“Name just a few race laws”
One of the attempts at a “gotcha” against the statement that there are, give or take, 145 operational race laws on the books in South
Afrikaners already “apologised for Apartheid” (and then some) but no more
The refrain is well-known by now: three decades into our democracy, Afrikaners have still not apologised for Apartheid. How is reconciliation possible under such circumstances?
DA’s amendments to PIE a good start, but here’s what’s really needed
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has taken up the fight against the misnamed Prevention of Illegal Evictions from and Illegal Occupation of Land Act (PIE), primarily
Did you know land reform is possible without confiscation or retribution?
South Africa’s post-1994 democratisation enshrined protected property rights in the Constitution – including the crucial right to compensation upon expropriation – which heralded a break