The Treatment Action Campaign and the Three Dimensions of Lawyering: Reflections from the Rainbow Nation

Abstract

The Treatment Action Campaign’s (TAC) activism over the past decade within post-apartheid South African society has served as a successful example of the promotion of social change in order to combat the HIV epidemic. In this paper, I analyze TAC’s advocacy methods in light of Lucie White’s three dimensions of lawyering and advocate that TAC has fulfilled all three dimensions in promoting a new form of participatory citizenship centred on grassroots activism and self-empowerment.

Keywords: South Africa, Treatment Action Campaign, Cause Lawyering, Social Change, HIV, Activism