The outsourcing of traditionally military functions in Africa to private military companies (PMCs) such as the Wagner Group and the Africa Corps has been accompanied by violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. According to the International Law Commission’s Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, state responsibility for these violations can be imputed to the states that employ PMCs to function as their agents, to exercise government authority or to act in the vacuum left by official authorities. States that do not intervene to prevent these abuses fail their obligations of due diligence through persistent non-action and should not be excused from demanding accountability by immunity agreements between the host and hiring states. We explore the possibility of the communitarian invocation of state responsibility by third-party states, on behalf of victims, in order to end impunity, drive accountability and secure effective redress for victims.

Conflict-related sexual violence and the rights of female victims have received scholarly attention, but the same cannot be said of post-conflict rejection and re-victimization of the victims and the violation of their rights. This article examines the rejection and re-victimization of the returnee victims / survivors of Nigeria’s Boko Haram’s sexual terrorism. It discusses how this violates their fundamental human rights as contained in various UN conventions and other legal frameworks. Relying on a legal-doctrinal approach, it examines these violations and the difficulty in enforcing such rights. Findings reveal that these human rights violations continue through the rejection and re-victimization of victims / survivors by family and community members. Despite these obvious rights violations, it has been difficult to seek legal redress for enforcing such rights due to the absence of political will on the part of the government.

This article demonstrates how international human rights treaties have the potential to fill the gaps in constitutional provisions and constitute therefore the extension of the constitutional bill of rights. Since human rights are formulated in approximately the same way in both the Francophone countries’ constitutions and in regional and international human rights treaties, through a casuistic approach, the article argues that the decisions of the human rights treaty bodies should serve as a guide to the interpretation of constitutional provisions by the Beninese constitutional judges. By being reluctant and disinterested in the decisions of its treaty monitoring bodies, the Beninese Constitutional Court deprives itself of an interpretation technique that is susceptible to strengthening the court’s legitimacy and independence. Hence, the article posits a dialogue between the Constitutional Court and the regional and international human rights treaty bodies. If at the global level, the use of UN treaties in constitutional adjudication is an essential step towards judicial globalization in human rights adjudication, at the regional level, the use of African Union treaties in constitutional adjudication is a strong signal of African “judicial” integration and therefore of Pan-Africanism.

The touchstone of judicial review in Lesotho for a long time has preeminently been the ultra vires principle. The modern conception of the doctrine of legality as a constitutional device to control the exercise of public power has not been a prominent feature of Lesotho’s public law. It has only gained traction recently. The superior courts in Lesotho – the High Court and the Court of Appeal – have ruled that the expansive doctrine of legality is now the cornerstone of constitutionalism in the country. In this new trajectory, they rely mainly on the well-developed South African legality jurisprudence. This development of constitutional law in Lesotho is laudable. However, the extent to which South African jurisprudence can inform Lesotho on this subject remains a matter of controversy. This article examines the “importation” of South African jurisprudence on legality into Lesotho, the lessons that Lesotho can derive and the future development pathways for legality in the country.

The procedure for mandatory reviews, also known as confirmations, has existed in Malawi since the colonial period. It requires that when a subordinate court convicts a person and imposes a punishment that passes a prescribed threshold, the case record be forwarded to a higher court for review. This article examines the evolution of this procedure in Malawi from the colonial era to how it is being currently understood and applied. It argues that the understanding that courts have recently attached to the procedure does not align with how this procedure has historically developed. Moreover, this understanding diminishes the procedure’s effectiveness in its function of protecting convicts’ rights. The article suggests ways of improving the procedure to ensure it remains relevant and suitable for the purpose for which it was originally established.

Research on strokes using genetics and neurobiobanking has highlighted some ethical, legal and social implications. Blood donation, brain donation, blood storage, re-use and sample sharing, data sharing, return of individual results, disclosure of incidental findings, pattern and causes of preference for informed consent, governance and regulation, and biorights are some of the legal problems presented. This study, therefore, explores this aspect in Sub-Saharan Africa using Nigeria and Ghana as case studies. In exploring this aspect, a qualitative method was adopted. In addition, the general jurisprudence of law and society was adopted as the theoretical framework and applied to the findings made. It was found that the law to a high level mirrors people’s expectations and that there was an existing social order to which the law was a contributor. It is therefore argued that any need for the intervention of the law must take cognizance of these findings.

The application by states of economic principles in education has not produced good results in access to education in low-income and less-developed countries. This prompted UNESCO to designate countries with substantial problems of access to education and illiteracy as the E-9 countries, which include Nigeria. Nigeria’s status as an E-9 country indicates the existence of considerable problems in education, and where necessary, statistical evidence will be used to elucidate Nigeria’s E-9 status. This article argues that the nature of the laws and policy mechanisms that control education in Nigeria suggests that the country seems to be responding to the contemporaneous demands of global programmes of action in education that are predicated on economic principles and driven by the tides of globalization instead of to the requirements of international human rights law.

The right to equality in South African law gives rise to duties borne by both the state and private actors. In the law of succession, this constrains private testators’ powers to discriminate. Doctrinal developments bear this out: in King v De Jager and Wilkinson v Crawford, a majority of the Constitutional Court extended the reach of anti-discrimination duties to private testamentary decisions. I evaluate these judgments through two lenses: a normative lens that focuses on the principled underpinnings of the Court’s approach to substantive equality, autonomy and the public / private divide; and an adjudicative lens that surveys how these duties should be given effect to avoid proliferating parallelism. I argue that the judgments are welcome and confirm that the private sphere is not insulated from demands of equality, but they nevertheless neglect the importance of both equality legislation and a harmonized approach to adjudicating the anti-discrimination duty’s reach into common law.

This article explores the challenge of financially advantaged spouses concealing assets within corporate structures during divorce proceedings, using the English legal framework as a reference point for potential reforms in Ghana. Although Ghana has made significant strides in ensuring the equitable distribution of marital property, these efforts may be insufficient if the concealment of personal or marital assets within corporate entities is not adequately addressed. The study focuses on the English legal distinction between piercing and lifting the corporate veil. It highlights that while piercing the corporate veil is a stringent measure used sparingly and typically in cases of fraud or evasion, lifting the veil is more pertinent in matrimonial disputes for revealing the actual control and ownership of assets. The article advocates for a clearer and more systematic application of the veil-lifting principles in Ghanaian law to expose hidden marital and personal assets effectively. By adopting these principles, Ghana can strengthen its legal framework to ensure a more equitable distribution of marital assets and achieve fairer outcomes in divorce proceedings.

After World War II, many countries, including Nigeria, embraced Keynesian “welfarist” policies to stimulate economic growth and enhance the well-being of their citizens. However, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a global economic crisis prompted a shift towards neoliberalism, leading to the commodification of social institutions and the implementation of policies such as privatization, trade liberalization and deregulation in Nigeria. This shift had a significant impact on Nigeria’s socio-legal economy, particularly in terms of property rights in company ownership. The article raises concerns about the structural injustice and growing inequality resulting from these neoliberal policies. It advocates for a legal framework that addresses these issues and proposes reconceptualizing private property rights in company ownership in Nigeria. This proposed framework aims to counter the dominance and power of property-owning elites and mitigate the structural injustice induced by neoliberal policies in Nigeria.

Pregnancy scams or fraudulent representations of pregnancy – a situation where a woman who knows that she is not pregnant, or has no reason to suspect that she is, deceives her spouse or sexual partner into believing that she is, usually for her own self-interest – have become a common phenomenon in Ghana, and the media is replete with such episodes. However, even though these media publications are useful in bringing this practice to the attention of the public, an analysis of the legal ramifications of, and the criminal justice response to, the phenomenon is virtually non-existent in the academic literature. Drawing on pertinent judicial decisions, statutes and academic literature, the present study offers an exposition of the legal implications of the pregnancy scam phenomenon in contemporary Ghana. It explores the extent to which this type of fraud is (un)actionable, highlighting important legal principles and controversies.

The wheels of decolonization and reparatory justice in Africa are slow. Each gain is fundamentally instrumental, resolute and instructive. In its judgment in John Ssempebwa v Kampala Capital City Authority, the High Court of Uganda resisted the applicants' compelling attempt to constitutionalize reparation for colonial legacies but exercised judicial activism in obliging the authorities to proactively embrace reparatory justice approaches. Names of public infrastructure especially in a capital city are symbols of a nation; they should promote positive memory and sustainable futures. The succinct ruling avoided spatial politics and the historical sensibilities that characterized colonialism such as the construct of racial superiority that negated the rights of African Ugandans. This omission undervalues the ruling at a time when multisectoral efforts such as legislating reparatory justice are required to advance Africa’s reparations agenda. Reparation and decolonization of public memory by Africans for Africans in Africa is critical amidst ongoing global efforts.