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.

Lecture Title

An Integrated Framework for Legal Reasoning in South Africa’s Law of Taxation: The International and Comparative Dimensions

Abstract

In this inaugural lecture, Professor Johann Hattingh will examine the international and comparative tax law dimensions of the integrated framework for statutory and treaty interpretation, as profoundly shaped by the landmark case of Natal Joint Municipal Pension Fund v Endumeni Municipality [2012] ZASCA 13. This judgment has significantly influenced the development of a unitary method of legal reasoning and analyses, particularly in relation to disputes concerning the interpretation of tax legislation and treaties. Drawing on his scholarship, he will illustrate how this text-based method has reinvigorated theoretically grounded interpretation of tax law, but also, what may be the limitations and doctrinal gaps that need to be addressed to achieve fuller methodological coherence. The question whether all aspects of the approach are workable in practice will be considered.

The lecture will focus on three features of the unitary method: First, he will consider the requirement to retrieve legislative meaning through historically grounded reasoning, illustrated by his work on foundational cases such as De Beers v Howe (1906) (tax jurisdiction over corporate entities) and South Africa’s early tax treaty making practice. Second, the requirement to engage with the purpose of legislation and treaties will be considered through reflection on divergent judicial approaches in South Africa and elsewhere, particularly drawing on his work about the jurisdictional purpose of tax treaties such as the theory of economic allegiance. Third, he will examine some of the limits of the unitary method, such as the narrow scope for adaptation of existing tax legislation and treaties to new and evolving societal conditions, including digitisation of economic activity.

He will conclude by reflecting on the inherent limitations of the international and comparative dimensions of the unitary method, and why these constraints point to the need for further and new theoretical work. In particular, he will discuss the development of a theory of technology‑neutral law design, which could serve as a lodestar for future reform of both the international and South African tax law systems.

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