A review of the work of the African Commission’s Working Group on Extractive Industries, Environment and Human Rights Violations in Africa
Posted: 26 April, 2016 Filed under: Miriam Azu | Tags: African Charter, African Commission, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African human rights system', Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), DRC, Environment and Human Rights Violations in Africa, extractive industry, human rights violations, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Liberia, Marikana, Marikana Commission of Inquiry, National Association of Professional Environments, natural resources, Nigeria, non-state actors, Ogoni, special mechanism, toolkit, Working Group, Working Group on Extractive Industries Leave a comment
Author: Miriam Azu
Lawyer, Human Rights Advocate and Environmental Activist
The Working Group on Extractive Industries, Environment and Human Rights Violations in Africa (Working Group) is an oversight mechanism of the African human rights system. Its general mandate is to monitor and report on how extractive activities affect the human rights and environment of the African peoples.[1] This article briefly evaluates what the Working Group has done so far vis-à-vis its mandate, notes some of its challenges and concludes with recommendations on the way forward.
Happiness and same-sex affection
Posted: 22 April, 2016 Filed under: Saul Leal | Tags: autonomy of will, Brazil, Chinelo Okparanta, Civil Code, constitution, fundamental rights, gay, happiness, homo-affectionate, hope of happiness, human dignity, Justice Celso de Mello, Justice Luiz Fux, love, Nigeria, prejudice, privacy, protection of the right to life, right to equal protection under the law, right to happiness, same-sex affection, same-sex couples, same-sex marriage, sexual discrimination, sexual minorities, United States Declaration of Independence 3 Comments
Author: Saul Leal
Vice-Chancellor Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for International and Comparative Law in Africa (ICLA)
Chinelo Okparanta is a Nigerian writer, currently living as a citizen in the United States. She understands the prejudices of her native country, especially against homosexuals. In some parts of Nigeria, a gay individual may be stoned to death under the Shari’a law. Okparanta writes, in her lesbian romance Happiness like Water, ‘yes, our love may be hidden, but it is strong. It can still bring happiness’.[1]
Why must the love between two consenting adults be hidden? Should the State have the power to decide towards whom one may show affection? These disconcerting questions may be answered in terms of global Constitutions.
The most important Brazilian decision which entailed the right to happiness was in 2011.[2] The Supreme Court had to rule on the interpretation to be given to article 1.723 of the Civil Code, which only recognizes a common-law relationship between a man and a woman as a family unit which must be public knowledge, continuous, and long-lasting, and be established for the purpose of building a family. The need for the aforementioned ruling resulted from the fact that government bodies refused to grant these rights to homo-affectionate couples. Therefore, the Court had to decide if this union also covered same-sex couples, even though the provision expressly mentions ‘man and a woman’.[3]
The National Migration Policy and its implementation framework: A precursor for a more effective migration governance in Nigeria
Posted: 30 October, 2015 Filed under: Uche Hilary-Ogbonna | Tags: access to education, disapora, health, human trafficking, IDP, implementation framework, international migration, legal frameworks, Mediterranean, migrant smuggling, migrants, Migrants and IDPs, migration, National Commission for Refugees, National Migration Policy, Nigeria, policy, refugees, rural-urban migration flows Leave a comment
Author: Uche Hilary-Ogbonna
Humanitarian Affairs Officer, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, (UN OCHA) Abuja
Legal frameworks are the bedrock for any effective management system. They underscore the importance of articulating a set of aspirations in concise directives and regulations, offering guidance to the myriad of field operatives and interventions in the varied sectors of migration management, development or the society at large. For the migration sector in Nigeria, it has been a long, tough journey to the adoption of the National Migration Policy and its implementation framework. The Policy is widely considered a breakthrough piece of legal document which came to fruition on account of years of toil by a host of government functionaries, development actors, the academia and civil society organizations.
The Policy comes at a very important time in the global migratory scene with the rise in international migration across the Mediterranean resulting in multiple deaths. With over 170 million citizens, Nigeria is important in migration management as a country of origin, transit and destination for migrants. Nigeria faces challenges such as effective diaspora engagement and remittances, inter-regional, rural-urban migration flows, migration of highly skilled and unskilled labour, data generation, as well as trafficking in persons to mention a few.
Nigerian schoolgirl kidnappings not just an act of terrorism
Posted: 19 May, 2014 Filed under: Karen Stefiszyn | Tags: #bringbackourgirls, African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, Bok Haram, criminal law, gender-based violence, kidnapping, militant, Nigeria, Northern Nigeria, patriarchal society, Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, school girls, terrorism, UNICEF Leave a comment
Author: Karen Stefiszyn
Programme Manager: Gender Unit, Centre for Human Rights
The kidnapping by Boko Haram of over 200 school girls in Northern Nigeria is an act of gender based violence for which not only Boko Haram is responsible, but also the Nigerian government. Indeed the militant group has carried out atrocities against boys and men that are equally deplorable, however, in this instance it is not by chance that Boko Haram kidnapped girls. They were targeted because they are girls.
The leader of Boko Haram said in a video shortly after the kidnapping that he would sell the girls in the market. His statement is reflective of an exceptional disdain for girls, which did not exist in isolation, but within a patriarchal society where harmful stereotypes perpetuate girls’ inferiority and enable violence against women to be an accepted norm. Amnesty International has reported that up to two thirds of Nigerian women may have experienced violence in the home by an intimate partner. While domestic violence differs in nature from the kidnapping of over 200 school girls, the common thread is the context within which the acts occur; in a society which does not accord women equal value and provides the structural conditions whereby a girl or woman can be abused in the home or kidnapped and threatened to be sold in the market.
Nigeria’s National Conference: The right to have it right in the education sector
Posted: 21 October, 2013 Filed under: Olaniyi Olayinka | Tags: Academic Staff Union of Universities, Boko Haram, constitution, education, National Conference, Nigeria, Regionalism 2 Comments
Author: Olaniyi Olayinka
Principal Assistant Registrar (Legal Matters) at The Polytechnic, Ibadan (Nigeria)
Calls for an all-inclusive National Conference to fashion out Nigeria’s national focus dates back to before 1922 – the Clifford Constitution – which until recently was never held. President Goodluck Jonathan in his 2013 Independence Day broadcast appointed a committee to facilitate the realisation of the conference. Author Uzodinma Nwaogbe has identified disunity, lack of faith and trust amongst citizens of Nigeria as some of the issues the conference should tackle and has given his support for the conference. The conference, according to Nwaogbe, is a platform for Nigerians to talk about issues that will help develop the country irrespective of religious, political and ethnic difference.
The Nigerian constitution, per Section 18(1), clarifies educational objectives of the government and provides that:
“Government shall direct its policy towards ensuring that there are equal and adequate educational opportunities at all levels.”
This article will determine the adequacy of funding for education in Nigeria and how the conference can pave the way for an improvement.
Education is under the purview of both the federal and state governments, and being less generous about funding education is plausible because they both draw from the same purse.
South Africa apartheid lawsuit – The end of the epopee?
Posted: 14 October, 2013 Filed under: Marek Jan Wasinski | Tags: Alien Tort Statute, apartheid, customary international law, extrajudicial killings, extraterritorial jurisdiction, Filartiga v Penalrala, injustices, international human rights, Khulumani, Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum Co, Nigeria, South Africa, Truth and Reconciliation Commission, United States of America 2 Comments
Author: Marek Jan Wasinski
Assistant Professor and Chair of Public International Law and International Relations – Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Lodz, Poland
On 21 August 2013, the 2nd United States (US) Circuit Court of Appeal reached a decision on a decade long putative class action suits brought on behalf of individuals harmed by the South African apartheid regime. The suits were originally initiated by two groups of plaintiffs, the Balintulo (or Khulumani plaintiffs) and the Ntsebeza plaintiffs against corporate defendants (namely: Daimler, Ford, and IBM). Plaintiffs asserted that the South African subsidiary companies of the defendants aided and abetted violations of customary international law committed by the (then) South African government. It was claimed inter alia that subsidiary companies had sold cars and computers to the South African government, thus facilitating race-based depredations and injustices, including rape, torture, and extrajudicial killings. A legal basis for the US court’s jurisdiction was the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), a famous part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, conferring federal jurisdiction over “any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States”. The ATS remained dormant nearly for two centuries until it spectacularly entered the stage before 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeal in a Filartiga v Pena-Irala wherein Paraguay citizens were allowed to sue a former Paraguayan police officer allegedly involved in an extrajudicial killing of a Paraguayan dissident’s son in Paraguay. The decision in Filartiga led to a dramatic rise in international human rights litigation in US courts, involving not only suits against private individuals but also against corporate entities for aiding and abetting violations of the law of nations. There were instances of such litigations ending with profitable settlements. For example, in Abdullahi v Pfizer Inc., Pfizer has reportedly agreed to pay $75 million as compensation for illegal clinical trials in Nigeria. Similarly in Wiwa v Shell Oil Co., faced with claims of complicity in murder, torture, and other crimes related to oil production in the Niger Delta, the Shell provided $15.5 million as compensation to those affected.
Upholding human rights in a state of emergency: What Nigeria must do now!
Posted: 1 July, 2013 Filed under: Chinedu Nwagu | Tags: Bok Haram, extra-judicial killings, human rights, Nigeria, Nigerian Constitution, President Goodluck Jonathan, state of emergency, terrorism 2 Comments
Author: Chinedu Nwagu
Program Manager, CLEEN Foundation, Abuja. LLB (Hons) (Imo State University), BL (Nigeria Law School), LLM (Pretoria)
Since 2009, most parts of northern Nigeria, particularly the north-east zone, have been enveloped in a climate of fear and insecurity. This is largely due to the activities of the group Jamā’atu Ahlis Sunnah Lādda’awatih wal-Jihad (People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad), popularly known as “Boko Haram”. What began as a religious movement in 2002 has since grown into a full blown insurgence. The extra-judicial killing of its founder, Yusuf Mohammed, by the police in 2009, perhaps, served as a critical factor. The perennial failure of governance, porous borders with volatile neighbouring countries, high levels of illiteracy, poverty and unemployment, and more recently, the hard-handedness of the government’s military response, have also made mobilisation of support and radicalization a lot easier for the group.
The protracted security crisis has now led to a human rights and humanitarian crisis in those parts. Government interventions, for a long time, proved inadequate and failed to contain the crisis. Instead, several human rights violations were reported from the activities of both the government’s military Joint Task Force and Boko Haram. According to Amnesty International, people living in that part of the country are precariously trapped in a vicious cycle of violence. Lives and limbs have been lost, properties destroyed and people displaced. There is no consensus about the exact casualty figures. Nonetheless, there is no argument that it is well in the thousands now.
Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill in Nigeria – Any human rights implications?
Posted: 11 June, 2013 Filed under: Azubike Onuora-Oguno | Tags: African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, anti-discrimination, civil union, dignity, equality, freedom of association and assembly, homosexuality, human rights, Nigeria, right to privacy, same-sex marriage, Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill 10 Comments
Author: Azubike Onuora-Oguno
LLD candidate, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
A same-sex union is known to be a sexual relationship between people of the same sex; namely, between two or more males or two or more females. This relationship often described as unnatural and amongst the Christian and Islamic faiths in Nigeria is general not accepted. Without any intentions of making an ideological or philosophical argument on the issue of the morality of this kind of relationship, I would like to explore the human rights implications of passing of the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Bill in Nigeria on 31 May 2013.
The new Bill refutes any benefits that may accrue to a marriage and restates that such a marriage will not be recognised, even when contracted outside Nigeria. It further outlaws the gathering of people of the same-sex and provides in very wide terms “directly or indirectly” liability for any person or group that is involved in a same sex relationship. It further stipulates a minimum period of 10 years imprisonment for direct or indirect involvement in issues concerning the rights of people of the same-sex. In enacting the Bill, the House of Assembly of Nigeria propose a $40million internet monitoring project to clamp down on people involved in same-sex unions.
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