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Full-Text Articles in Law
The African System On Human And Peoples' Rights, Quasi-Constructivism, And The Possibility Of Peacebuilding Within African States, Obiora Chinedu Okafor
The African System On Human And Peoples' Rights, Quasi-Constructivism, And The Possibility Of Peacebuilding Within African States, Obiora Chinedu Okafor
Obiora Chinedu Okafor
This article examines the influence that IHIs (such as the African System on Human and Peoples' Rights) can exert within states, with the facilitative work of local popular forces, and relates that to the possibility of valuable IHI contributions to peacebuilding within deeply fragmented African states. Of all the existing approaches to the study of IHIs, constructivism comes the closest to accounting for the highly significant incidences of IHIjostered (and popular forces-facilitated) 'correspondence' that occurs outside the 'compliance radar'. In this sense the article is a contribution to the growing constructivist human rights and institutional literature sets. In particular the …
Irrigating The Famished Fields: The Impact Of Labour-Led Struggles On Policy And Action In Nigeria (1999-2007), Obiora Chinedu Okafor
Irrigating The Famished Fields: The Impact Of Labour-Led Struggles On Policy And Action In Nigeria (1999-2007), Obiora Chinedu Okafor
Obiora Chinedu Okafor
Between 1999 and 2007, a broad-based labour-led movement which focused most of its energies on its struggle against unpopular fuel price hikes in Nigeria was able to exert considerable, though limited, influence on an Obasanjo-led executive arm of government that was at best quasidemocratic in its orientation. This article argues that, despite the very important roles played by other factors (notably the presence of more democratic space in Nigeria post-1999), the movement's adoption of a mass social movement approach facilitated its ability to exert such influence.
Poverty, Agency And Resistance In The Future Of International Law: An African Perspective, Obiora Chinedu Okafor
Poverty, Agency And Resistance In The Future Of International Law: An African Perspective, Obiora Chinedu Okafor
Obiora Chinedu Okafor
This article enquires into the likely posture of future international law with respect to African peoples. It does so by focusing on three of the most important issues that have defined, and are likely to continue to define, international law’s engagement with Africans. These are: the grinding poverty in which most Africans live, the question of agency in their historical search for dignity, and the extent to which these African peoples can effectively resist externally imposed frameworks and measures that have negative effects on their social, economic and political experience. International law’s future posture in these respects is considered through …
Assessing Baxi’S Thesis On The Emergence Of A Trade-Related Market-Friendly Human Rights Paradigm: Recent Evidence From Nigerian Labour-Led Struggles, Obiora Chinedu Okafor
Assessing Baxi’S Thesis On The Emergence Of A Trade-Related Market-Friendly Human Rights Paradigm: Recent Evidence From Nigerian Labour-Led Struggles, Obiora Chinedu Okafor
Obiora Chinedu Okafor
The objective of the article is to assess some of the sub-claims that emerge from Baxi’s thesis on an emergent trade-related market-friendly human rights paradigm in the light of the available evidence regarding the intense contestations and confrontations that have occurred between Nigeria’s politically and economically transitional Obasanjo regime and a local labour-led coalition. The piece sets out to ascertain the contextual and localised validity of these ‘Baxian’ sub-claims, within the wider context of the government vs. labour confrontations in Nigeria during the neo-liberal socio-economic reforms undertaken in that country between 1999 and 2005.