Contextualising the right to development in the mineral beneficiation discourse
Posted: 17 December, 2025 Filed under: Nasubila Ng’ambi | Tags: African Charter, African Mining Vision, cultural rights, economic differences, foreign exploitation, Global North, Global South, human rights, industrialisation, infrastructural development, international monopolies, Keba M’baye, Mineral beneficiation, mineral wealth, New International Economic Order, raw commodities, sub-Saharan Africa, The Right to Development, value-added processing Leave a comment
Author: Nasubila Ng’ambi
LLM (cum laude), University of Pretoria
It’s time for Africa
Home to approximately 30% of the world’s critical raw minerals, Africa holds a highly coveted position in the low carbon transition. However, at present Sub-Saharan Africa’s (SSA) development index is an alarming 0.568, with 0.5 being the lowest index and 0.9 being the highest, demonstrating that the region is living far below the privileges that could be afforded by its resource endowments. Several African countries have taken steps to capitalise on their mineral wealth, with Malawi being the most recent African jurisdiction to impose a ban on the exportation of raw minerals.
However, what is the legal, rights-based justification for these measures? This article offers the right to development (RTD) as grounding for the recent measures taken to compel external actors to engage in domestic mineral beneficiation.
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Courting Dignity: The East African Court of Justice and the Jurisprudence of Silence
Posted: 20 November, 2025 Filed under: Carolyn W. Gatonye | Tags: cited torture, civil war, crimes against humanity, EAC, East Africa, East African Court of Justice, enforced disappearance, fundamental freedoms violation, gender equity, harassment, human dignity, human rights defenders, human rights violations, jurisdiction, jurisprudence, political sensitivities, rising repression, silence of justice, unlawful arrests, unlawful imprisonment 3 Comments
Author: Carolyn W. Gatonye
Kabarak University
The silence of the East African Community (EAC) in the face of rising repression in Tanzania is deafening. Yet, this is hardly new thunder in the EAC bloc. Time and again, the region has watched storms gather over its neighbors; tremble, then retreat. Its response to human rights violations has slowly been morphing into a modern norm, where crises within partner states are met with studied indifference. No meaningful condemnation, no show of solidarity with those whose rights are violated, just mere silence, setting a dangerous precedent that suggests member states may violate fundamental freedoms without fear of regional scrutiny. It’s from this refusal to speak out, that the EAC risks complicity in the very injustices its Treaty seeks to prevent.
Spotlighting Female Genital Mutilation: An Insidious International Human Rights Crisis
Posted: 6 October, 2025 Filed under: Amanda Janell DeAmor Quest | Tags: 200 million girls, Africa, Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women, Convention on the Rights of the Child, female genital mutilation, fgm, global public health concern, human rights violation, initiation ritual for women and girls, international human rights law, nation-wide outrage, no benefits, physical force, prerequisite for marriage Leave a comment
Author: Amanda Janell DeAmor Quest
Commonwealth Caribbean Lawyer
On August 11, 2025, the BBC reported the death of a one-month-old baby girl who had been subjected to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in the Gambia—a country that is one of 10 countries with the highest rates of FGM despite the practice having been outlawed there since 2015. This incident incited nation-wide outrage against FGM and decidedly affirmed its status as one of the most egregious manifestations of gender-based violence in the world today. FGM encompasses “all procedures that involve altering or injuring the female genitalia for non-medical reasons” and is mostly performed on girls between the ages of 5 and 9. For this reason, FGM is “recognised internationally as a violation of the human rights, the health and the integrity of girls and women” Unfortunately, despite its deleterious effects on the lives, health, safety, and well-being of approximately 200 million girls and women worldwide, FGM continues to be reverenced as a “cultural tradition” in adherent societies.
AUCEVAWG: A missed opportunity in the fight against violence towards women and girls in Africa
Posted: 22 September, 2025 Filed under: Lakshita Kanhiya | Tags: African Union (AU) Assembly, AUCEVAWG, combat violence, Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (CEVAWG), displaced women, ensuring gender-responsive budgeting, free from violence, harmful labour, human rights, older women, questionable consultations, religious fundamentalism, right of women and girls, sexual and gender minorities, shrinking civic space, state obligations, travaux préparatoires, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT), vulnerable groups, women with disabilities 1 Comment
Author: Lakshita Kanhiya
Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA)
Introduction
In February 2025, the African Union (AU) Assembly adopted the Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (CEVAWG), a landmark instrument that seeks to strengthen the continent’s response to one of its most pervasive human rights challenges. The Convention affirms the right of women and girls to live free from violence (Article 2) and extends protection across both public and private spheres, including cyberspace and conflict settings (Article 3). It prescribes comprehensive state obligations from enacting laws to combat violence, ensuring gender-responsive budgeting, and establishing coordinated support services for survivors (Articles 4–5), to protecting particularly vulnerable groups such as displaced women, women with disabilities, and older women (Article 7). The text also contains progressive provisions on the world of work (Article 8), safeguards for girls against harmful labour (Article 9), preventive measures that outlaw customs or traditions invoked to justify violence (Article 10) and guarantees of access to justice and protection for human rights defenders (Articles 11–12).
Objection! The AU Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls, and the Question of Participatory Legitimacy
Posted: 18 September, 2025 Filed under: Mariam Kamunyu | Tags: ACHPR, advocacy, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African feminists, Akina Mama wa Afrika, Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, AU Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls, AUCEVAWG, civil society actors, ethical implications of exclusion, Fòs Feminista, feminist movements, gender-based violence, international law, legality, Participatory Legitimacy, power imbalances, ravaux préparatoires, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, women and girls in Africa 2 Comments
Author: Dr Mariam Kamunyu
British Academy International Fellow, School of Law and Politics , Cardiff University
In February 2025, the African Union (AU) adopted the African Union Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (AUCEVAWG), hailed in some corners as a historic legal instrument addressing gender-based violence across the continent. And yet, for many African feminists, the moment was shocking and bittersweet. The adoption marked the culmination of a drafting process that, by most accounts, was characterised by exclusion and opacity, particularly of the very feminist movements whose decades of advocacy laid the groundwork for such a treaty. This article proffers that the lack of meaningful participation by a cross-section of civil society actors undermines the convention’s political and normative legitimacy, even if its legal validity remains intact.
State-sanctioned human rights violations in Kenya: countering repression with resistance
Posted: 29 August, 2025 Filed under: Edward Kahuthia Murimi | Tags: 2024 Finance Bill, arbitrary arrests, barbaric governance, CIVICUS, death while in police custody, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial killings, global alliance for civil society organisations, human rights, human rights violations, Kenya, Kenya’s Constitution, Multinational Security Support mission to Haiti, President Ruto, protesters, public policy, Rex Masai, right of peaceful assembly, right to life, rule of law, the right to freedom of expression, watchlist, widespread human rights abuses Leave a comment
Author: Edward Kahuthia Murimi
Advocate of the High Court of Kenya
Introduction
Kenya’s human rights situation has deteriorated in the recent past, and the state-sponsored human rights violations in the country can no longer be ignored. The global alliance for civil society organisations, CIVICUS, has recently added Kenya to its watchlist and rated the country as ‘repressed’ following what the organisation described as ‘a disturbing escalation in state-led repression of civic freedoms’. This article aims to shine a light on escalating human rights violations in Kenya in the hope that an international readership will inform some form of restraint by the authorities. It also highlights the disconnect between Kenya’s theoretical commitments to international human rights norms and processes and the blatant disregard for these same norms in practice. It argues that deliberate resistance is the most realistic response to the current onslaught on the exercise of human rights by President Ruto’s government.
The intersection between human rights and company regulation in South Africa: Reflections on Ndamase v Commissioner: Private Inquiry into the affairs of SNS Holdings
Posted: 24 July, 2025 Filed under: Siyabonga Nyezi | Tags: Companies Act, Companies Act of 2008, constitution, Ndamase v Commissioner: Private Inquiry into the affairs of SNS Holdings (2023-019694) [2024] ZAGPPHC 407, religious institutions, right to freedom of belief, right to freedom of conscience, right to freedom of opinion, right to freedom of religion, SNS Holdings (Pty) Limited, South Africa 1 Comment
Author: Siyabonga Nyezi
University of the Witwatersrand
The Constitution of South Africa confers upon all people the right to freedom of conscience, religion, belief, and opinion. It is unlikely that, when drafting section 15 of the Constitution, the legislature contemplated that this right would make its way into disputes relating to the regulation of companies. The facts in the recent case of Ndamase v Commissioner: Private Inquiry into the affairs of SNS Holdings (2023-019694) [2024] ZAGPPHC 407 put to bed any doubts in that regard. My reflections on this decision in this article examines the limitation of human rights by the provisions of section 417.
Licence denied: The legal roadblocks facing deaf drivers in Africa – Reflections on Musukwa & others v Road Transport and Safety Agency
Posted: 30 June, 2025 Filed under: Jeff Barker, Michael Gyan Nyarko | Tags: adequate standard of living, African Charter, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, deaf drivers, dignity, disability, equal protection of the law, freedom of movement, human rights, human rights instruments, limitation of rights, public safety, right to employment, right to non-discrimination, Supreme Court of Zambia 1 Comment |
Author: Jeff Barker Intern, Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa |
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Author: Michael Gyan Nyarko Deputy Executive Director, Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA) |
Introduction
In a 2024 decision the Supreme Court of Zambia denied an application by three deaf drivers who had taken Zambia’s licensing authority to court.[1] The applicants argued that they were refused a drivers licence solely on the basis of their disability. Surprisingly, the Supreme Court of Zambia found that the licencing process was not discriminatory, and, therefore, there was no need for the government to justify a limitation of rights. The refusal to issue driver’s licences to deaf individuals has implications on several rights, including the right to non-discrimination and equal protection of the law, dignity, freedom of movement and the right to employment and an adequate standard of living, among others. The decision of the Supreme Court of Zambia therefore raises several human rights issues which are more extensively discussed by the authors in a forthcoming journal article. In this brief piece, we share some reflections on the limitation of rights under the African Charter and in particular what would be required of a state, within the African regional human rights system, to justify limiting the rights of deaf drivers?
Confronting Digital Hate: Africa’s Legal and Ethical Response to Hate Speech
Posted: 18 June, 2025 Filed under: Hlengiwe Dube | Tags: #NoToHate, AI, Artificial intelligence, communication landscapes, Countering Hate Speech, cyber-harassment, cyberstalking, Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa, discrimination, freedom of expression, gender equality, gender-based violence, gender-sensitive enforcement mechanisms, hate speech, hateful messages, hostility, human dignity, interconnected digital age, International Day for Countering Hate Speech, new technologies, peacebuilding, printed propaganda, sexist hate speech, UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech, violence, vulnerable groups 1 Comment
Author: Hlengiwe Dube
Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
Every year on June 18, the world comes together to observe the International Day for Countering Hate Speech, a solemn reminder that words can wound deeply and sometimes irreparably. Hate speech is not a new problem. Throughout history, language has been weaponised to demean, divide, and destroy, but today, in our interconnected digital age, the scale, speed, and sophistication of hate speech’s spread are unprecedented. This is especially true in Africa, a continent marked by extraordinary diversity in ethnicity, religion, culture, and language, where hate speech can quickly inflame tensions and threaten peace. The devastating consequences of hate speech in Africa are not merely theoretical. The 1994 Rwandan genocide stands as the darkest example, where incendiary radio broadcasts and printed propaganda dehumanised the Tutsi minority, turning words into deadly action. This tragedy also became a powerful lesson in the importance of vigilance, legal safeguards, and coordinated responses to hateful rhetoric.
AfricLaw 
Corporal punishment as a public health concern: Breaking the cycle of violence against children in Africa
Posted: 25 September, 2025 | Author: AfricLaw | Filed under: Nqobani Nyathi | Tags: 1.2 billion children, Africa, African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, Children with disabilities, corporal punishment of children, dropout rates, General Comment 9, global public health concern, Guidelines on Ending Violence Against Children in Africa, no benefits, physical force, public health crisis, religion, religious traditions, tradition, violence, World Health Organisation (WHO) | Leave a commentDoctoral Candidate, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
On 20 August 2025, the World Health Organisation (WHO) launched a report declaring corporal punishment of children a global public health concern. By definition, corporal punishment is any punishment where physical force is used with the intention of causing some degree of discomfort or pain, however light.
The statistics are staggering. An estimated 1.2 billion children around the world are subjected to corporal punishment at home every year. Children exposed to such violence are more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and emotional instability. These effects often persist into adulthood, increasing the risk of alcohol and drug use, and violent behaviour. In schools, corporal punishment contributes to dropout rates and poor educational outcomes.
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