Making sense of Africa’s massive abstentions during the adoption of the UNGA resolution on the Aggression Against Ukraine
Posted: 21 April, 2022 Filed under: Sâ Benjamin Traoré | Tags: abstaining states, African abstentions, double standards, French military presence, global war against terrorism, independent African states, international concerns, international humiliation, international law, international relations, Palestinian struggle, Ukrainian crisis, UNGA resolution, UNGA resolution on the Aggression Against Ukraine, Western hypocrisy 2 Comments
Author: Sâ Benjamin Traoré
Assistant Professor of Law at the Faculty of Governance, Economics and Social Sciences of the Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Rabat (Morocco).
Introduction
The ongoing Ukrainian crisis has shown profound divisions among African countries. The UN General Assembly’s voting on 2 March perfectly captures such a division. Resolution A/RES/ES-11/1, titled “Aggression against Ukraine”, was adopted by a vote of 141 in favour and 5 against, with 35 abstentions. Of these 35 abstentions, 17 were African states including Algeria, Angola, Central African Republic, Congo, Equatorial, Mali, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. This figure represents almost half of the abstaining states. Eight African countries did not even submit their votes (including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Morocco, and Togo) and Eritrea voted against the resolution. All in all, almost half of the African states did not vote in favour of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution. The split between African states in the voting also reflects the divide in public opinion about the Ukrainian crisis across African countries. While the West has shown unfailing support for Ukraine, Africa and the rest of the world have adopted a more ambivalent position. The significant number of African abstentions has raised international concerns, especially in the West. This voting attitude of African states abstaining remained almost the same during the adoption of the UNGA resolution on humanitarian assistance to Ukraine on 24 March. South Africa had proposed a rival resolution that was not eventually discussed by the UNGA. On 7 April, more African countries abstained and many other voted against the resolution suspending Russia from the Human Rights Council. It is also well-known now that African countries have not adopted sanctions against Russia despite the avalanche of sanctions adopted by western countries.
Sexual harassment in higher education institutions: the law and the practice
Posted: 5 April, 2022 Filed under: Kebkab Sirgew Gelaw | Tags: Civil Rights Act of 1964, higher education institutions, male domination, sex discrimination, sexual harassment, sexual harassment laws, sexually aggressive, sexually passive, tradition, Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), unwanted sexual advances Leave a comment
Author: Kebkab Sirgew Gelaw
International Human Rights Lawyer
Sexual harassment has been a fact of life ever since humans inhabited the earth.[1] Despite its existence, it has been ignored and the tradition has made women keep quite concerning the act as if nothing went wrong. It is hard to unthink what you know, but there was a time when the facts that amount to sexual harassment did not amount to sexual harassment, the facts amounting to the harm did not socially “exist,” had no shape, no cognitive coherence; far less did they state a legal claim.[2]
Sexual harassment is a manifestation of the male domination and has clearly indicated that the domination extended socially, economically, and politically. Women were socially expected to be passive about many activities, which the society believed to be challenging, and those challenges were passed on to men to be handled.
AfricLaw 