Afro-digital ethics, law and online hate in Africa
Posted: 13 July, 2020 Filed under: Thompson Chengeta | Tags: Africa, African, African ethics, Afro-digital ethics, AI, artificial intelligence technologies, artificial technology, digital, ghost accounts, haana hunhu, hate speech, hateful messages, humanism, hunhu, international standards, natural language processing, online hate, online platforms, personhood, Rabat Plan of Action, South Africa, ubuntu, ubuntuism, virtual, xenophobia Leave a comment
Author: Thompson Chengeta
European Research Council Fellow on Artificial Intelligence Ethics and law, University of Southampton
Introduction
Across the globe, there is a general increase in online hate and sharing of hateful messages on online platforms. The past weeks saw hateful and xenophobic hashtags trending in South Africa. As noted by some commentators, online hate “can pollute civic discourse, inflict harm on targeted victims, create and exacerbate social divisions, and erode trust in the host platforms”. Online hate should not only be dealt with in terms of the law but also afro-digital ethics. With increased internet penetration in Africa, advent of smartphones and digital platforms, many people spend most of their time online. In this digital age, the virtues of our lives are beginning to be shaped and influenced by our virtual lives. Yet, not much has been done to guide our lives – particularly those of young people – in this new virtual world. The African saying “it takes a village to raise a child” denotes communitarian ethos relating to duties of the elderly in the community to instil African ethics in young persons. But does such an African village exist online? While digital technologies are undoubtedly impacting our African utopias or dystopias on what it means to be humane, the elderly who usually enforce and instil African ethics and morality in young people are offline. For parents who are online, they rarely have access to their children’s online platforms for many reasons including the use of ghost accounts. I also contend that a failure to respect African ethics online is a result of the breakdown of African communitarian ethos in the real world. For example, the spread of hateful content against fellow Africans has its genesis in economic failures of African leaders, most of whom are selfishly and corruptly enriching themselves.
COVID-19: How more access to the internet can reduce existing barriers for women’s rights in Africa
Posted: 4 May, 2020 Filed under: Nelly Warega, Tomiwa Ilori | Tags: Access to Information, access to information online, Africa, civil society organisations, coronavirus, COVID-19, CSOs, digital platforms, digital skills, domestic violence, health services, inequalities, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, internet access, Kenya, Lagos State Government Health Service Commission, lockdown, mainstream media, maternal health, maternal mortality, Mozambique, Nigeria, pandemic, PPE, PPEs, smart phones, South Africa, Uganda, women's rights Leave a comment
Authors: Nelly Warega* and Tomiwa Ilori**
*Legal Advisor, Women’s Link Worldwide
**Doctoral researcher, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
On 17 April 2020, a Twitter user tweeted about a hospital in Lagos that demanded personal protective equipment (PPE) from a woman seeking to give birth at the facility. The incident, according to the user happened at the General Hospital, Ikorodu, under the Lagos State Government Health Service Commission. The PPEs have become important for health workers given the surge in transmission COVID-19 across the world. However, despite the rising demand and scarcity of PPEs, a conversation on the propriety of placing the burden of procurement of PPEs on expectant mothers is vital.
A socio-legal analysis of Nigeria’s Protection from Internet Falsehoods, Manipulations and Other Related Matters Bill
Posted: 5 December, 2019 Filed under: Tomiwa Ilori | Tags: Africa, Bill, Constitution of Nigeria, dissemination of information, ECOWAS, Fake News, false statements, freedom of expression, Frivolous Petitions Bill of 2015, ICCPR, internal rules, Internet Falsehoods, legislation, Manipulation, Manipulation and Other Related Matters Bill, Nigeria, Nigerian Communications Commission, online freedom of expression, platform regulation, Protection from Internet Falsehoods, restriction of content, social media, social media platforms 1 Comment
Author: Tomiwa Ilori
HRDA Alumni Coordinator/Researcher: Democracy, Transparency and Digital Rights Unit, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
Introduction
The curbing of information disorder online has become one of the most contentious areas in platform regulation. Not only do states struggle with the best approach to fulfill their responsibility to safeguard human rights, non-state actors, especially social media platforms are stepping in with self-imposed rules that may reflect scale but struggle with context on regulating free speech. The most prevalent challenge facing social media regulation, especially outside the United States whose free speech regime is regarded as liberal, is the varying degrees of the protection of free speech in other jurisdictions. Social media platforms also face the challenge of protecting free speech on one hand and catering to national contexts on the other. These variations are often due to the different socio-political local context of each country.
The impact of Internet shutdowns in Africa
Posted: 21 February, 2019 Filed under: Tomiwa Ilori | Tags: ACHPR, Africa, African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, African Governments, Arab-spring, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), digital rights, Egypt, electoral malpractices, Freedom of Expression And Access to Information, general elections, ICCPR, ICESCR, internet, internet shutdown, Johannesburg Principles on National Security, national security, public protests, shutdown, Siracusa Principles, state power, Sudan, technology, violations, Zimbabwe Leave a comment
Author: Tomiwa Ilori
LLD Candidate, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
In the past, authoritarianism like any other form of illegitimacy has always been paranoid of disruptions. The internet, since its decentralisation in the last century, has blurred boundary lines, projected a classless society and looked to upset apple carts in political spaces. It is typical that this form of “magic” that could redefine state power rattled many governments. African governments soon began to show overt signs of paranoia and not too long, Africa became the first continent to experience an internet shutdown in Egypt on 28 January 2011. Since then, several governments in Africa have constantly violated digital rights with the justification of national security which supposes that both are mutually exclusive.
Violence against women and girls in Africa: A global concern to ponder on International Women’s Day and beyond
Posted: 8 March, 2018 Filed under: Kennedy Kariseb | Tags: Africa, conflict, education, empowerment, feminism, girls, human rights, international human rights, international law, International Women's Day, IWD, IWD2018, pandemic, sexual violence, SRVAW, treaty, UN, United Nations, VAW, violence, violence against women, women, women's human rights, women's rights, women's rights movement 2 Comments
Author: Kennedy Kariseb
Doctoral candidate, Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria
It has been four decades since the United Nations (UN) observed for the first time International Women’s Day (IWD) on 8 March 1975. Although there are traces of celebration of this day, dating as far back as 1909, its formal initiation came in the wake of the first World Conference of the International Women’s Year that took place in Mexico City, Mexico. Its object, as aptly argued by Temma Kaplan, is to mark ‘the occasion for a new sense of female consciousness and a new sense of feminist internationalism’.[i]
In a sense, 8 March is meant to be a day of both celebration and reflection for women the world over: a celebration of the gains made in enhancing women’s rights and the overall status of women globally, while reflecting and strategising on the voids and shortcomings still persistent in the women’s rights discourse. The occasion of the forty-third celebration of the IWD clearly marks an opportunity for feminist introspection on the broader question of violence against Women (VAW) and its regulation under international law. This is because while VAW is not the only form of human rights abuse women suffer, it is one in which the gendered aspect of such abuse is often the most clear and pervasive.
South Africa’s intention to withdraw from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court: Time to seriously consider an African alternative?
Posted: 28 October, 2016 Filed under: Owiso Owiso | Tags: Africa, African Charter, African Charter of Human and Peoples’ Rights, African Court of Justice and Human Rights, African Union, AU, Election and Governance, frican Charter on Democracy, human rights, ICC, impunity, International Criminal Court, International Criminal law, justice, Kenya, Malabo Protocol, Omar Al-Bashir, Rome Statute, South Africa, Sudan, Uhuru Kenyatta, United Nations, United Nations Security Council, William Ruto 1 Comment
Author: Owiso Owiso
LLB – Nairobi, PGD Law – KSL
While the decision by South Africa to commence the formal process of withdrawing from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is shocking, honest observers will admit it was not entirely unforeseen. African countries through the African Union (AU) have long voiced misgivings about the International Criminal Court (ICC) and it was just a matter of time before the usually slow-moving AU clock started ticking. The AU had earlier this year urged its members to consider withdrawing from the Rome Statute.[1] This was triggered by the refusal by the United Nations Security Council and the ICC to accede to the AU’s requests for suspension or termination of the cases against Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir and his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto.
While South Africa’s decision should be condemned, nothing much is likely to come of such condemnation. Treaties are a product of state consent[2] and it follows that withdrawal is equally a unilateral act of the state.[3] Even if an argument could be advanced against such unilateralism, the process is still a political one which rests almost entirely with the political class, at least in imperfect democracies. South Africa’s move is likely to embolden other African countries to commence similar processes. South Africa is Africa’s biggest economy and the AU’s largest member contributor. It is also arguably one of Africa’s better-off imperfect democracies. For these reasons, it is often the case in continental affairs that other African countries hold on to their cards until South Africa plays after which they emerge from their cocoons and play theirs in more or less similar fashion. With the possible exception of ‘righteous’ Botswana and perhaps Mauritius that considers itself African only when the situation suits it, the possibility that other African countries will follow South Africa’s lead on the ICC cannot be ruled out. In light of such possibility, how then does Africa assure its citizens that the fight against impunity as is entrenched in its founding instrument[4] is still top of its agenda, if at all it ever was?
Rethinking the North-South divide in international criminal justice: Reflections from an African viewpoint
Posted: 25 October, 2016 Filed under: Francis Dusabe | Tags: accountability, Africa, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African Union, AU, collaboration, courts, Hissène Habré, ICC, International Criminal Court, international criminal justice, International Criminal law, law, regional mechanisms, Rome Statute 2 Comments
Author: Francis Dusabe
Legal Researcher
‘Whatever you do for me but without me, you do against me’– Mahatma Gandhi, 1869-1948
More than ever before, Africa is at both sides of the coin; it is the subject of international criminal law because African states have steadfastly stood for the creation of the International Criminal Court and an object of international criminal law because of the unfortunate participation of Africans in atrocities that ravages their continent.
Unlike what many think, Africa has a lot to offer in the development of international criminal law, be it at domestic, regional and international level. Domestically, Africa leads other continents in the nationalisation of international criminal law either through domestication of the Rome Statute or the incorporation of main principles of international criminal law as enshrined in major conventions and treaties in national law.
The 2016 Zambia presidential election petition: How not to handle election petitions
Posted: 16 September, 2016 Filed under: Owiso Owiso | Tags: Africa, amendment, Constitution of Kenya 2010, Constitution of Zambia, Constitutional Court of Zambia, constitutional provisions, Edgar Chagwa Lungu, elections, Hakainde Hichilema, legislative drafting, president-elect, presidential election petition, Zambia 5 CommentsAuthor: Owiso Owiso
LLB – Nairobi, PGD Law – KSL
If the drama that was Hakainde Hichilema v Edgar Chagwa Lungu (2016/CC/0031) has any lessons for the continent, it is how not to adjudicate upon a presidential election petition. Three judges of the court effectively succeeded in making an unfortunate mockery of their bench and risking the otherwise good image Zambia’s electoral process has enjoyed for a few decades now. We should, however, not be too quick to cast aspersions on the court and the learned judges. In order to understand what transpired in the Constitutional Court of Zambia, we have to look at the relevant legal provisions guiding presidential election petitions.
The right to happiness in Africa
Posted: 13 July, 2016 Filed under: Saul Leal | Tags: Africa, apartheid, Christopher Mbazira, colonialism, constitution, David Bilchitz, economic development, Egypt, employment, Frederick Fourie, freedom, Ghana, Justice Albie Sachs, Leopold Sadar Senghor, Liberia, liberty, Namibia, Nigeria, racism, right to happiness, right to life, safety, security, South Africa, Steve Biko, Stu Woolan, Swaziland 3 Comments
Author: Saul Leal
Vice-Chancellor Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa (ICLA)
Leopold Sedar Senghor said: emotion is African.[1] This emotion has been channeled to constitutions. Happiness is a core value in many African constitutions. It was explicitly mentioned in Liberia, Namibia, Ghana, Nigeria, Swaziland, and Egypt.
Article 1 of the Constitution of Liberia, 1986, proclaims that all free governments are instituted by the people’s authority, for their benefit, and they have the right to alter and reform it when their safety and ‘happiness’ require it.[2] The preamble of the Egyptian Constitution, 2014, cites ‘a place of common happiness for its people’. The Namibian Constitution, 1990, assures the right ‘to the pursuit of happiness’. In this regard, Frederick Fourie defends the preamble of the Namibian Constitution, explaining that it is coloured by the struggle against colonialism and racism; that it is built around the denial of the ‘right of the individual life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ by colonialism, racism and apartheid.[3]
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights under the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the enforceability problem
Posted: 8 July, 2016 Filed under: Olika Daniel Godson | Tags: Africa, African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, Apex Court, constitution, constitutional provisions, economic, enforceability, enforcement, human rights, International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, law, legislation, litigation, Nigeria, Supreme Court 2 Comments
Author: Olika Daniel Godson
Student (LLB) Faculty of Law, University of Lagos
The 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (hereinafter referred to as the “Constitution”) provides for economic, social and cultural rights in rather grand and lofty terms in form of the Fundamental Objectives and Directive Principles of State Policy in Chapter II of the Constitution. These rights are however denied enforceability under the Constitution as it prefers to see them as goals and objectives which the Government is to strive to attain. This denial of enforceability of these rights contained in this Chapter of the Constitution poses a major problem to human rights activism in the Country, as the specific rights contained in that Chapter of the Constitution are worthy of enforcement in this age and time. Some of those rights include; cultural, labour, economic, political, environmental and educational rights. It therefore comes, now and again, to the fore that some of these rights are not being enforced in the country. This article attempts to analyse the enforceability problem and address some strategies for enforcement.
