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International Human Rights : The Protection Of The Rights Of Women And Female Children In Africa : Theory And Practice, Eleazar Echezonachi Otiocha

Theses and Dissertations

Many governments all over the world have enacted laws and regulations to promote and protect the rights of women and female children. A lot of laws have been put in theory to give women equality with men. In reality or practice, many women all over the world still find it difficult to realize their rights. This study attempts to look at how far the laws on women rights, that is the law in books has become the law in practice/reality in many African states with Nigeria as a case study. This study acknowledges that in theory many African states have …

Health And Reproductive Rights In The Protocol To The African Charter: Competing Influences And Unsettling Questions, Rachel Rebouché

UF Law Faculty Publications

In 2005, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Protocol) came into force. Since that time, the Protocol has received scant attention in legal scholarship. Where the Protocol has been mentioned, by and large it has received praise as a major step forward for women's rights on the continent. Much of that praise is merited. The Protocol includes broad rights to non-discrimination, equality, and dignity, and it addresses a variety of areas such as labor and employment, marriage and the family, the legal system, the political process and …

African Regional Trade Agreements As Flexible Legal Regimes, James Thuo Gathii

James Thuo Gathii

Based on the types of treaty commitments contained in African Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) and how these RTAs are understood by their members, this article argues these RTAs are flexible legal regimes. Flexibility here refers to the following defining features of African RTAs. First, these RTAs are regarded as establishing flexible regimes of cooperation as opposed to containing rules requiring scrupulous and rigorous adherence. Second, African RTAs incorporate as a central feature the principle of variable geometry according to which different speeds towards meeting time tabled and other commitments are adopted. Third, African RTAs adopt a broad array of social, …

Countering The Somali Pirates: Harmonizing The International Response, Richard Weitz

Journal of Strategic Security

The growing threat to international shipping in the Gulf of Aden and neighboring regions from pirates operating off the shores of lawless Somalia has engendered an unparalleled global response. Over the past year, numerous international security organizations as well as national governments have organized many separate multilateral and single-country maritime security operations in the Horn of Africa region. Despite the unprecedented extent of this effort, this mishmash of ad hoc multinational and national initiatives has had only a limited effect. These various contingents typically have conflicting mandates and rules of engagement. They have also become fixated on responding to immediate …

African Regional Trade Agreements As Flexible Legal Regimes, James Thuo Gathii

James Thuo Gathii

Based on the types of treaty commitments contained in African Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) and how these RTAs are understood by their members, this article argues these RTAs are flexible legal regimes. Flexibility here refers to the following defining features of African RTAs. First, these RTAs are regarded as establishing flexible regimes of cooperation as opposed to containing rules requiring scrupulous and rigorous adherence. Second, African RTAs incorporate as a central feature the principle of variable geometry according to which different speeds towards meeting time tabled and other commitments are adopted. Third, African RTAs adopt a broad array of social, …

Africa, Mark J. Calaguas

Mark J Calaguas

The Africa Committee's contribution to the 2008 Year-in-Review issue of the American Bar Association Section of International Law's quarterly journal, The International Lawyer

Al-Qaeda In The Lands Of The Islamic Maghreb, Gregory A. Smith

Journal of Strategic Security

This paper is organized into four chapters that focus on the terrorist group Al Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The four chapters examine different facets of the collective environment that have allowed AQIM to succeed and even thrive at times. The first chapter begins with Algeria’s war of independence with the French. The second chapter focuses on the nomadic Tuareg people. It seeks to show how the Tuaregs were deprived by French occupiers and how European colonization cost the Tuaregs access to vital trade routes used for centuries. The third chapter will very briefly examine Algeria’s …

The Kiss Of Death: A Sowellian Analysis Of International Recognition And The Somaliland Paradigm, Donato J. Latrofa

Donato J Latrofa

The concept of “statehood” and “recognition” governs debate about the future of Africa, and in particular, what should be done with Somalia/Somaliland. The question lately has been whether or not newly-formed/seceded nations should be “recognized” (as if recognition by the rest of the organized world equates to legitimacy or functionality). Many scholars believe that Somaliland should be “recognized” because it has shown itself to be a bastion of calm in the Horn of Africa. However, these scholars overlook that such a decision may not be costless to Somalilanders and their government. The first part of this article gives a background …

Constructing Governance, But Constructive Governance? The Emergence And Limitations Of A Dominant Discourse On The Regulation Of Private Military And Security Companies, Surabhi Ranganathan

Surabhi Ranganathan

The private security industry’s rise to prominence has led to much debate, primarily relating to concern for human rights and the role of the state. The industry’s potential to level the playing-field between developed and developing countries in obtainment and deployment of security is often remarked upon, but the divide created by their differing capacities and motivations to control security service providers goes unnoticed. The result is a dominant discourse which embraces assumptions that limit effective policy formulation.

This discourse has two central tenets. The first is the normalization of private military companies as partners and agents of state governments. …

Peace From Below: Recent Steps Taken Along The Track-Two Diplomacy Path, Michael Thomas Kuchinsky

Human Rights & Human Welfare

A review of:

Peacemakers in Action: Profiles of Religion in Conflict Resolution. Edited by David Little. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

and

Peace Out of Reach: Middle Eastern Travels and the Search for Reconciliation. By Stephen Eric Bronner. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007.

Book Review, Victor Peskin, International Justice In Rwanda And The Balkans: Virtual Trials And The Struggle For State Cooperation (2008), Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Implementation of the law requires strategic cooperation. No surprise there: It does so even in the most taut domestic polity. Law is intrinsically contingent. And political. But what does the particularly acute dependency of international criminal law on political cooperation teach us about its pertinence? Its promise? Its limits? It is one thing to assess the functionality of international criminal law. It is another to gauge the value of international criminal law, when actuated through adversarial trials, in reconstituting shattered communities; and its effectiveness as a tool of transitional justice. At its core, Virtual Trials is an analysis about functionality. …

African Wetlands Of International Importance: Assessment Of Benefits Associated With Designations Under The Ramsar Convention, Royal C. Gardner, Kim Diana Connolly, Abou Bamba

Journal Articles

A party to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands must designate at least one site within its territory as a Wetland of International Importance. To assess the benefits associated with these international designations, the authors conducted a survey of 26 Ramsar sites in 18 countries in Africa. After a brief introduction to the Ramsar Convention, the article describes the sites that were surveyed, focusing on the ecosystem services they provide and the challenges they face. The article then examines how the sites are identified with the Ramsar Convention and found that designation provided benefits such as: increased support for protection and …

Metals Or Management? Explaining Africa's Recent Economic Growth Spurt, Laura Nyantung Beny, Lisa D. Cook

Articles

Explanations for Africa's poor long-run growth performance have varied over time. The theories examined include geography (Jeffrey D. Sachs and Andrew Warner 1997); institutions (William Easterly and Ross Levine 1997; Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson 2001, 2002; Nathan Nunn 2007, 2008); health (David Bloom and Sachs 1998; Gregory N. Price 2003); and economic dependency (William Darity 1982). More recently, economists have attempted to explain what The Economist has called Africa's new "period of unparalleled economic success" (The Economist 2008a, 33). Average annual real GDP growth was 1.8 percent between 1980 and 1989 and increased to 4.4 percent between …

The Human Rights Potential Of Sovereign Wealth Funds, Christiana Ochoa, Patrick Keenan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In April, 2008, World Bank president, Robert Zoellick, called for sovereign wealth funds to invest one percent of their capital in Africa. The result will be the International Finance Corporation's Sovereign Funds Initiative and is an attempt to nurture the potential of sovereign wealth funds to contribute to economic development and improved well-being in a number of countries in Africa and elsewhere. This article explores the actual potential of the Sovereign Funds Initiative to realize its desired goals. After exploring and demonstrating the disappointing effects of natural resource wealth, development aid and foreign direct investment on some developing countries, the …

Kenyan Politics And The Politics Of Summer Programs, Patrick Kelly

Patrick Kelly

This brief article for the Proceedings of the American Society of International Law’s annual symposium discusses the interrelationship of Legal education partnerships in Africa and domestic politics using Kenya as an example. The practicalities and cultural benefits of living and studying in a foreign country are inevitably intertwined with the political tensions and aspirations embedded in that society. This article first discusses the special rewards and practicalities of a summer program in Africa; and then attempts to provide a richer, more complex picture of the recent political struggle and ethnic conflict in Kenya after the December, 2007 Presidential election. It …

Vultures, Hyenas, And African Debt: Private Equity And Zambia (Private Equity Symposium), Olufunmilayo B. Arewa

Olufunmilayo B. Arewa

A 2007 U.K. court case involving Donegal, a private equity fund, and the Republic of Zambia, has contributed to an ongoing debate about the operation of so-called vulture funds in African and other developing countries. Donegal sued Zambia for more than fifty-five million U.S. dollars in connection with a debt owed by Zambia to Romania for Zambia’s acquisition of agricultural machinery from Romania pursuant to a credit agreement dated April 17, 1979. Donegal acquired the Zambian debt from Romania in 1999 at some eleven percent of face value. Although the Donegal court explicitly limited its scrutiny to the legal questions …