Edwin Cameron SCOB (born 15 February 1953 in Pretoria) is a retired judge who served as a Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

[2] President Ramaphosa appointed him as Inspecting Judge of Correctional Services from 1 January 2020[3] and in October 2019 he was elected Chancellor of Stellenbosch University.

[10] And, in 1987, Cameron argued that three senior South African judges, including its former Chief Justice, Pierre Rabie, ought to resign to preserve the legitimacy of the judiciary.

[1] Cameron's practice included labour and employment law; defence of African National Congress fighters charged with treason; conscientious and religious objection; land tenure and forced removals; and gay and lesbian equality.

[13] Cameron's report was described as a "hard-hitting" critique of Armscor's conduct, but was quickly eclipsed by myriad other allegations about the South African government's illegal arms trades.

[20] The Judicial Service Commission had recommended that Cameron be permanently appointed, but Sandile Ngcobo was ultimately preferred due to the late intercession of Thabo Mbeki, then Deputy President, who felt the appointee should be black.

[27] In Minister of Finance v Gore, Cameron co-authored a judgment with Fritz Brand that held the state could be delictually liable for causing pure economic loss by fraud.

[31] This was praised as an "imaginative"[citation needed] and "brilliant"[32] judgment by commentators and means South Africa must have an independent corruption-fighting agency notwithstanding the ruling ANC's controversial disbanding of the Scorpions.

[42][43] Thereafter he oversaw the gay and lesbian movement's submissions to the drafters of the South African Constitution and was instrumental in securing the inclusion of an express prohibition on discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

[46] From 1988 Cameron advised the National Union of Mineworkers on HIV/AIDS, and helped draft and negotiate the industry's first comprehensive AIDS agreement with the Chamber of Mines.

Cameron's realisation that he owed his life to his relative wealth caused him to become a prominent HIV/AIDS activist in post-apartheid South Africa, urging its government to provide treatment to all.

[47] His second memoir, Justice: A Personal Account, urges that the best path forward to a more just society in South Africa is through the Constitution and the rule of law.

[52] At the 21st International Aids Conference, held in 2016 in Durban, South Africa, Cameron expanded on the call for decriminalization of HIV, stating "[t]he biggest problem is stigma.

"[55] He further stated "Sex workers are perhaps the most reviled group in human history - indispensable to a portion of mostly heterosexual males in society, but despised, marginalized, persecuted, beaten up and imprisoned.

[58] The Judicial Inspectorate of Correctional Services (JICS) is an watchdog body created during the Mandela Presidency to inspect and report on conditions in prisons, with a view to safeguarding inmates' dignity.

Stalingrad tactics involve "a well-resourced accused, over a protracted period, postponing or frustrating the trial process... by deploying every possible legal argument and stratagem to thwart the prosecution.

[66] Cameron has proposed a range of solutions, including firmer institutional discipline and, in exceptional cases, the imposition of time limits on the start and finalisation of criminal trials.

[1][71][72] Cameron was, until 2015, the general secretary of the Rhodes Scholarships in Southern Africa and is a patron of the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal.

[74] In 2021 he was awarded the Order of the Baobab (Gold), South Africa's highest civilian honour, for his contribution to the judicial system, as well as his "tireless campaigning against the stigma of HIV and AIDS, and the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual (LGBTQIA+) communities".

[75] Cameron's critical role in the battle for access to antiretroviral treatment in Africa and other parts of the global south is portrayed in the award-winning documentary Fire in the Blood.

[76] Cameron was the subject of a complaint to the Judicial Service Commission, alleging that he had failed to declare a potential conflict of interest in relation to a case before the Constitutional Court.

Cameron was a board member of GroundUp at the time, which is an unpaid position with no role in editorial decisions, and the editor Nathan Geffen was one of his close friends.