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The African Human Rights Court: A Two-Legged Stool?, Makau Wa Mutua

Journal Articles

This article examines the African continental human rights system that is built on the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. It pays particular attention to the deficits of that system and argues that the establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights – a judicial body meant to strengthen the protection of human rights in Africa – falls far short. It exposes the normative and structural shortcomings that render the court virtually meaningless. It concludes that the court serves very little purpose except to address the enormous human rights challenges facing Africa.

African Integration Schemes: A Case Study Of The Southern African Development Community, Muna Ndulo

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Looking Past The Human Rights Committee: An Argument For De-Marginalizing Enforcement, Makau Wa Mutua

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

The Stories We Must Tell: Ugandan Children And The Atrocities Of The Lord's Resistance Army, Rosa Brooks

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay is about stories--the stories that we are told and the stories that we, in turn, tell to others. It has become a truism that we have lost our faith in master narratives and that the "real" is composed of many competing narratives, all fragmentary, contradictory, overlapping. In this article, the author discusses the problems this view poses for those of us who see ourselves as advocates and activists rather than solely--or primarily--as scholars, but who nonetheless seek to combine social activism with intellectual rigor and honesty. In particular, she discusses the dilemmas this creates for the human rights …

Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide (E-Law), Colorado Journal Of International Environmental Law And Policy

Colorado Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Hope And Despair For A New South Africa: The Limits Of Rights Discourse, Makau Wa Mutua

Journal Articles

This article is a critique of the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa. It explores the assumptions employed by the African National Congress and the international community to construct a post-apartheid society. It argues that the reliance on the law as the key medium for economic, social, and political change was insufficient to transform the legacy of apartheid. Instead, the piece contends that apartheid was privatized and its beneficiaries protected under the new dispensation. It makes the argument that the lot of the black majority is unlikely to be changed such gradualist approach to social change.

The Politics Of Human Rights: Beyond The Abolitionist Paradigm In Africa (Review Essay), Makau Wa Mutua

Book Reviews

Review of Claude E. Welch, Protecting Human Rights in America: Strategies and Roles of Non-Governmental Organizations (1995).

The Politics Of Human Rights: Beyond The Abolitionist Paradigm In Africa, Makau Wa Mutua

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of Protecting Human Rights in Africa: Strategies and Roles of Non-Governmental Organizations by Claude E. Welch

The Ideology Of Human Rights, Makau Wa Mutua

Journal Articles

This piece argues that although human rights is an ideology although it presents itself as non-ideological, non-partisan, and universal. It contends that the human rights corpus, taken as a whole, as a document of ideals and values, particularly the positive law of human rights, requires the construction of states to reflect the structures and values of governance that derive from Western liberalism, especially the contemporary variations of liberal democracy practiced in Western democracies. Viewed from this perspective, the human rights regime has serious and dramatic implications for questions of cultural diversity, the sovereignty of states, and the universality of human …

Power Ethnicized: The Pursuit Of Protection And Participation In Rwanda And Burundi, Linda Maguire

Buffalo Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Putting Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again: The Dilemmas Of The Post-Colonial African State (Review Essay), Makau Wa Mutua

Book Reviews

Reviewing Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority, I. William Zartman, ed.

The Concept Of Humanitarian Intervention Revisited, Yogesh K. Tyagi

Michigan Journal of International Law

Every case of humanitarian intervention gives rise to mixed feelings of hope and despair. Hope comes from the involvement of the international community, and despair comes from the fact that the state system is still too weak to meet its basic responsibility, namely, the protection of human dignity. Influenced by these mixed feelings, the present article attempts a new look at the concept of humanitarian intervention. In Part I, it examines the concept of humanitarian intervention. Part II analyzes the principal aspects of humanitarian intervention: the reasons for the intervention, the character of the target state, and the status of …

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.

The Banjul Charter And The African Cultural Fingerprint: An Evaluation Of The Language Of Duties, Makau Wa Mutua

Journal Articles

No abstract provided.

Foreign Investment In Sub-Saharan Africa: How Changing Attitudes Have Affected The Legal Environment In The Post Cold War Era, Joel Waswa Kisubika

LLM Theses and Essays

In Sub-Saharan Africa, like many other third world and former Soviet bloc countries, economic development policies revolve around raising the standard of living for their people. Therefore, they are seeking different ways to attract investment, trade, technology, and jobs. The movement towards attracting foreign investment has been paralleled by democratic political reforms and economic liberalization of previously autocratic and restrictive systems. These reforms have been enacted, mostly at the insistence of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, in order to deal with the severe foreign debt situation and improve Sub-Saharan Africa’s opportunities for attracting foreign investment. This paper …

Why Redraw The Map Of Africa: A Legal And Moral Inquiry, Makau Wa Mutua

Journal Articles

This article questions the legitimacy of the African state and the imperial cartography on which it is based. It argues that African states are conceptually faulty because they are the crude and thoughtless handiworks of European colonial powers. It is the artificiality of the African state that has been responsible for its failure to cohere into a nation that is viable. The piece argues for geographic and normative re-articulation of the African state - by smashing the current states - to endow them with moral, political, and legal legitimacy. It concludes that democratic entities are unlikely to develop where pre-colonial …

Essay—Sub-Saharan Africa: Economic Stagnation, Political Disintegration, And The Specter Of Recolonization, Jon H. Sylvester

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Amicus: Vol. 7, No. 2, Fall, Valparaiso University School Of Law

Alumni Magazine: Alumni News (1970, 1978-1987) / The Amicus (1987-1995) / Valpo Lawyer (2000-2006) / Annual Review (2013-2020)

No abstract provided.

The Constitution And Immigration: The Impact Of The Proposed Changes To The Immigration Power Under The Constitution Act, 1867, Davies Bagambiire

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article examines the impact that the suggested changes would have on the immigration power as presently set forth in sections 95 and 91(25) of the Constitution Act, 1867, and on Canadian immigration policy generally. First, it discusses how the present immigration power is allocated as between the federal government and the provinces, how it has been exercised or attempted to be exercisedby the two levels of government and how it has evolved and been interpreted by the Courts. Secondly, it looks at the problems that could arise as a result of the federal government transferring some of its immigration …

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.

Litigation & Inequality: Federal Diversity Jurisdiction In Industrial America, 1870–1958, Edward A. Purcell Jr.

Books

Through the prism of litigation practice and tactics, Purcell explores the dynamic relationship between legal and social change. He studies changing litigation patterns in suits between individuals and national corporations over tort claims for personal injuries and contract claims for insurance benefits. Purcell refines the "progressive" claim that the federal courts favored business enterprise during this time, identifying specific manners and times in which the federal courts reached decisions both in favor of and against national corporations. He also identifies 1892-1908 as a critical period in the evolution of the twentieth century federal judicial system.

United States Seizure Of Stateless Drug Smuggling Vessels On The High Seas: Is It Legal, Michael Tousley

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Human Rights In Africa: A Cultural, Ideological, And Legal Examination, Ziyad Motala

UC Law SF International Law Review

This Article considers the dominant liberal interpretation of human rights and examines its relevance to African society in terms of its cultural and ideological origins. An argument is made that traditional African society had a conception of human rights which respected important human rights values. However, the rights in traditional African society were not conceptualized in individual terms. This constitutes a fundamental point of departure from the liberal interpretation. Furthermore, human rights practices should be understood, and criticisms against African societies made, in terms of traditional African conceptions. Finally, the African Charter of Human and People's Rights is evaluated in …

Conscientious Objection In South Africa: Governmental Paranoia And The Law Of Conscription, Lynn Berat

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

By the end of 1975, Mozambique and Angola' had gained independence; in 1980, Rhodesia became black majority ruled Zimbabwe.' Although it is currently occupied illegally by South Africa in contravention of both a United Nations Security Council Resolution and an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice,' even Namibia (also known as South West Africa) will soon become an independent state.' No longer surrounded by a buffer zone of white minority ruled states separating it from black ruled Africa, South Africa stands alone, the last outpost of white supremacy on the continent.

Amidst all of these developments, the South …

Alumni News: Vol. 8, No. 1, Valparaiso University School Of Law

Alumni Magazine: Alumni News (1970, 1978-1987) / The Amicus (1987-1995) / Valpo Lawyer (2000-2006) / Annual Review (2013-2020)

No abstract provided.

Human Rights In Africa: Observations On The Implications Of Economic Priority, Minasse Haile

Articles

The article argues that the failure of economic development strategies in Africa is deeply intertwined with the denial of civil and political rights, particularly for the rural poor. It critiques the "economic rights first" approach, which prioritizes material needs over democratic participation, and contends that such an approach is both principled and practically flawed. The analysis emphasizes that without civil and political rights, development strategies like the Basic Needs Strategy (BNS) are unlikely to succeed, as they require equitable distribution of wealth and benefits, which undemocratic regimes often fail to implement. The article also examines the limitations of both Afro-Marxist …

Human Rights In Africa: Observations On The Implications Of Economic Priority, Minasse Haile

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

Serious internal obstacles also block adequate realization of civil and political rights in Africa. The colonial legacy, rising popular expectations for a better life, subversion from abroad and the absence of strong national cohesion will engender political instability in African political systems that give free rein to the exercise of civil and political rights. Moreover, even if one assumes a democratic political system would be viable politically, that system may succumb to demands for increased consumption rather than promote adequate investment in infrastructure. In either event, democratic political systems will tend to be unstable, with the result that economic development …

138th University Of Notre Dame Commencement And Mass Program, University Of Notre Dame

Commencement Programs

138th University of Notre Dame Commencement and Mass Program

Refugees, Law, And Development In Africa, Peter Nobel

Michigan Journal of International Law

This article concerns those large movements of people in Africa, which have been called the "African refugee problem." However, large and intriguing migrations of populations have occurred in Africa for centuries. The earliest migrations reflected the spread of culture, the growth of trade and the development of roving early kingdoms. The unique history behind the refugee dilemma, however, begins with the instability spawned by slave trading and colonialism. Sensitivity to these eras heightens an understanding of why today's Africa is wrought with economic crises, territorial disputes, unnatural frontiers, misfit ethnic combinations, and more refugees than any other continent. Against this …

Law And Absolute Poverty, Julio Menezes

Valparaiso University Law Review

No abstract provided.