About our speaker

Professor Johann Hattingh is a scholar of international tax law and the history of taxation. He is a Professor of Commercial Law and an Advocate of the High Court of South Africa. Since 2025, he serves as the President of the International Fiscal Association (IFA) of South Africa.

Professor Hattingh earned his PhD in Law from the University of Cambridge, where he developed a theory of integrative tax treaty interpretation. He also holds a LLM by research from the University of Cape Town and another LLM in International Tax Law from Leiden University in the Netherlands. He completed his B.Com (Law) and LL.B at Stellenbosch University. Earlier in his career, he practiced in international tax with PwC.

Since 2003, Professor Hattingh has been affiliated with the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation (IBFD) in Amsterdam, where he was appointed Chief Editor of the Bulletin for International Taxation in 2019. He is a member of Global IFA’s Permanent Scientific Committee and serves on the International Tax Law Committee of the International Law Association (ILA).

His academic contributions include lecturing at institutions such as the University of Cambridge, Stellenbosch University, Leiden University’s International Tax Centre, and serving as an academic visitor at the Oxford Institute for European and Comparative Law. As a productive author, Professor Hattingh has published more than 75 academic works. His research on tax treaties has been cited by courts including the South African Tax Court, the Supreme Court of Canada, and the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. He is a member of the International Tax Group, which is a renowned research group comprising academics with a background in practice, who has been publishing books and articles in the field of comparative and international tax law for more than 50 years.

Professor Hattingh has acted as a senior international tax consultant for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and has contributed to tax initiatives under the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) on behalf of the African Union. He is widely consulted by both public and private sector organizations across the African continent.

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