South Africa's foreign policy is principled but not persuasive

MORAL DILEMMA

- SHERWYN SEAN CUPIDO-WEAICH

SOUTH Africa is often described as a country that sits on the fence. When it refuses automatic alignment with powerful states, the criticism is familiar - indecision, moral ambiguity, quiet hostility. That accusation sharpened after South Africa condemned US action in Venezuela and called for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council. In Washington, this was widely interpreted as an unfriendly act.

What is often described as neutrality is, in reality, constitutional nonalignment. Yet South Africa has failed to explain this clearly, consistently and persuasively.

South Africa's Constitution does not permit foreign policy to operate outside law. External relations are expected to reflect the same values that govern domestic power - dignity, accountability and restraint.

This was a deliberate post-apartheid choice, grounded in the recognition that unchecked power had caused harm both internally and externally.

Klug (2010) asserts that South Africa's constitutional design deliberately integrates international law into domestic constitutional reasoning. A state that limits power at home cannot exercise it freely abroad.

The Constitutional Court affirmed this approach early on. In S v Makwanyane, it held that international human-rights law is not optional background material but a legitimate interpretive guide to constitutional meaning. Liebenberg (2010) situates this within South Africa's project of transformative constitutionalism, in which law is intended to reshape how power is exercised rather than merely restrain excess. That logic was reinforced in Glenister v President of the Republic of South Africa, where the court held that international anti-corruption obligations shape constitutional duties domestically.

As Dugard (2018) explains, the judgment confirms that international commitments cannot be invoked selectively when politically convenient.