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Full-Text Articles in Law
Illegal Peace?: An Inquiry Into The Legality Of Power-Sharing With Warlords And Rebels In Africa, Jeremy I. Levitt
Illegal Peace?: An Inquiry Into The Legality Of Power-Sharing With Warlords And Rebels In Africa, Jeremy I. Levitt
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Article represents the first conscientious attempt to address these questions, present a conceptual framework for examining the legal and political efficacy of coercing democratically constituted governments into sharing power, and define a lawful basis or approach to sharing power when governments are confronted with the aforementioned scenario. The Article is polemical and questions the dominant logic that political power-sharing is lawful, legitimate, and unequivocally serves the public good, arguing that power-sharing deals that ignore controlling rules are unlawful and not viable.
Articulating The Right To Democratic Governance In Africa, Nsongurua J. Udombana
Articulating The Right To Democratic Governance In Africa, Nsongurua J. Udombana
Michigan Journal of International Law
This Article articulates the right to democratic governance in Africa, arguing that democratic entitlement ought to acquire, if indeed it already has not acquired, a degree of legitimacy in the continent. If democratic governance is a fundamental human right, which this Article asserts it is, it follows that any African State that denies its citizens the right to any of the elements of democratic entitlement-such as free and open elections-is violating a fundamental right, which should attract responsibility. The Article begins with an examination of the patrimonial State structure in Africa and its negative impact on governance. It is a …
Why Redraw The Map Of Africa: A Moral And Legal Inquiry, Makau Wa Mutua
Why Redraw The Map Of Africa: A Moral And Legal Inquiry, Makau Wa Mutua
Michigan Journal of International Law
The author argues in this Article that the post-colonial state, the uncritical successor of the colonial state, is doomed because it lacks basic moral legitimacy. Its normative and territorial construction on the African colonial state, itself a legal and moral nullity, is the fundamental reason for its failure. The author argues that, at independence, the West decolonized the colonial state, not the African peoples subject to it. In other words, the right to self-determination was exercised not by the victims of colonization but their victimizers, the elites who control the international state system.
Perestroika African Style: One-Party Government And Human Rights In Tanzania, John Quigley
Perestroika African Style: One-Party Government And Human Rights In Tanzania, John Quigley
Michigan Journal of International Law
The one-party systems in Africa have drawn negative reactions from Western States that provide economic aid. The article assesses the one-party system in light of international human rights law and asks whether aid-giving States must consider whether one-party rule in recipient States violates international standards. In this connection, the article asks whether the rights of association and political freedom as developed in Europe can fairly be applied to Africa, given its historical experience.