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Tydskrif vir die Suid-Afrikaanse Reg

Editorial Board

Prof Jean Christoph Sonnekus BA LLB LLM LLD

Prof Jean Christoph Sonnekus BA LLB LLM LLD

Managing Editor

Prof Jean Christoph Sonnekus has been described as “by far the most productive law academic that South Africa has produced” – with 17 books of which he is the sole or co-author (many of which have run into multiple editions), 307 articles (at the last count) and 36 substantive book reviews to his name. For more than 40 years he has been refining and honing private law, with matrimonial property law, law of property, law of succession, law of enrichment, estoppel and real security rights law as areas of specialisation. His comparative law approach has by all accounts drawn the attention of foreign law experts to South African private law.

From as early as 1976, Prof Sonnekus has been a member of the TSAR editorial team and in 1981 he became Editor, a position that he has occupied since then with only short interruptions.

Since 2008, Sonnekus has been invited on an annual basis by the chairperson of the XII. Zivil Senat of the BGH (the highest German court of appeal) to discuss with them the interpretation and application of new German legislation in the field of private law. He is the only member from outside Europe who is a member of the Wissenschaftliche Vereinigung für Familienrecht in recognition of his continued contribution to the development of matrimonial property law in various legal systems.

He is the only person from outside Europe who forms part of the editorial team of the Tijdschrift voor Privaatrecht (Belgium) and has, as such, made a real contribution to the creation of an exchange chair in private law in which, alternating every two years, a prominent Afrikaans-speaking private law expert is given the opportunity to do research at a Flemish or Dutch law faculty and lecture there in Afrikaans for a number of weeks.

Sonnekus is a regular contributor to the annual conferences of the Ius Commune.

In 2008 he was invited to discuss the accrediting of national and international specialist law journals with the management of ThomsonReuters in the USA. The same invitation was extended to him In 2009 by Routledge of London. His standing with international publishers is proven by the invitation of the publisher to take part in the 100 Jahre BGB 100 Jahre Staudinger Congress in München.

ORCid: 0000-0003-0621-5611