Analysis

The article analyses the High Court’s decision in Wathome & 14 others v Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service & another; Greenpeace Environmental Kenya & 2 others (Interested Parties) [2025] KEHC 18166 (KLR) (the Wathome Decision), focusing on the arguments advanced and the Court’s response to the tension between plant variety protection and farmers’ rights. Finally, it reflects on what a more balanced legal and policy framework might entail, while also engaging with emerging challenges related to the place of genetically modified crops and the growing reliance on toxic agrochemical inputs in food production.

In late November 2025, the Machakos High Court in Kenya issued an unprecedented judgment that was noteworthy. The judgment was not limited to legal correction; it struck down the key provisions of the Seed and Plant Varieties Act (SPVA). It was a strong assertion of humanity’s dignity, culture, and the right to eco-justice. The Court aligned Kenyan law with constitutional values and international human rights obligations by declaring unconstitutional the laws that criminalized the saving, sharing, and sale of farm-saved and Indigenous seeds. The UN human rights experts have recognised this judgement as a landmark for the rights of peasants and food security, and declare it a strong rebuttal against the international trade of seeds through restrictive IP regimes.

This volume weaves through an analysis of Intellectual Property Rights as integrated with sustainable development. The contribution of IP in the achievement of sustainable development goals is brought out through nineteen chapters. This review is not a chapter-by-chapter exploration. However, it starts with a general outlook of the work presented in this book as summarized in the first chapter, highlighting key points of significance. The review follows up with a few other positive pointers to be appreciated in the general context of the work, before picking out on underlying gaps that generally stand out in all the chapters.

Through case and thematic analyses drawn from specific African countries and regional organizations, the book explores the intersection of IP with crucial sectors that are key to advancing sustainable development in Africa. In particular, the book situates the IP and sustainable development conversation within the context of agriculture and food security, access to medicines and public health, gender empowerment, small business development, innovation and patent quality, financing, innovation, entrepreneurship and commercialization, data protection, traditional knowledge and artificial intelligence in Africa. In this connection, the book explores the interaction between IP rights and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which are also articulated in the African Union’s development objectives (Agenda 2063).

The 2025 landmark judgment by the High Court of Kenya in the case of Samuel Wathome and 14 others v Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service and another (Samuel Wathome case) fundamentally reaffirmed a broad conceptualization of the previously diminished farmers’ rights to save, exchange, and sell seeds. There had previously been a discernible trend, since the year 2012, of undermining the farmers’ rights through domestic legislation and the ratification of the 1991 International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) Treaty in 2016. Until the 2025 High Court Judgment, the ratification of UPOV 1991 and consecutive amendments to the Seeds and Plant Varieties Act (SPVA) and its implementation Regulations had resulted in an extremely liberal conceptualization of plant breeder’s rights (PBRs) to an extent that they were patent like. The 2022 amendments to the SPVA and implementing Regulations particularly proceeded to the extent of criminalizing the exchange of ‘unregistered’, ‘uncertified’ and ‘unindexed’ indigenous seeds that have, historically, been part of the African commons.

As debates on seeds and plant varieties continue to evolve in Kenya, this symposium reflects on the case and its significance for the future of seed and plant variety protection in the country. In addition to this introduction, the Symposium comprises three contributions: Tom Kabau’s “Kenya’s Seeds Case: The Enduring African Commons of Plant Genetic Resources,” Wambugu Wanjohi’s “Beyond Breeder Rights: Reclaiming Seed Sovereignty, Food Justice and Cultural Autonomy in Kenya,” and Brian Kibet’s “Whose Seeds, Whose Future? Seed Sovereignty and Farmers’ Rights in Kenya.” Kabau argues that the High Court’s judgment is well-grounded in the realities of agricultural practice in Kenya and affirms the enduring character of plant genetic resources as part of the African commons.

As 166 trade ministers converge on Yaounde for the World Trade Organization's Fourteenth Ministerial Conference (MC14), they confront a defining choice: deliver substantive reform or preside over the multilateral trading system's gradual irrelevance. Africa's decision to host this conference at such a critical juncture carries profound symbolic and substantive weight—particularly for the continent's 1.4 billion people and the world's poorest economies whose prosperity depends on rules-based, rather than power-based, international trade.

The book Taxation, Human Rights, and Sustainable Development - Global South Perspectives offers a profound interdisciplinary exploration of the intersection between fiscal policy, human rights, and sustainable development. It features a diverse range of contributors arguing that taxation must be understood not merely as a fiscal or economic mechanism for state revenue generation, but as a vital instrument of human rights fulfilment and social justice. The authors contend that tax systems embody the essence of a social contract, mediating the reciprocal obligations between the state and its citizens. At its core, the book asserts that States, bound by international human rights law and domestic constitutional commitments, have an obligation to design and implement fiscal systems capable of respecting, protecting and fulfilling rights. Taxation, therefore, becomes a moral and political process through which states mobilize resources to secure access to healthcare, education, infrastructure, and social protection.

The book is well written, structured, and displays depth of research into the nexus between taxation, socio-economic rights and sustainable development. The book underscores the importance of tax justice in attaining any meaningful and lasting development in the Global South. The book is of immense use not only to students and researchers but also to human rights groups, policy makers and the general public. Apart from the general introduction written as chapter one, the authors divide the book into three major parts with eleven chapters in total. The first part of the book discusses conceptualization and evolution of the role of human rights in taxation while the second part focuses on the role of various stakeholders in taxation. The third part explores the existing relationship between tax compliance and development. However, for ease of reference, I will take the liberty of appraising the book per chapter.

Emerging literature has established that there is a link between taxation and human rights. However, the nature of this link, the existence (or absence) of a coherent normative framework, and how taxation can be leveraged to foster the realization of socioeconomic rights have preoccupied the discussions in the literature. Notably, very few conversations in the literature have exclusively focused the discussion on taxpayers’ perspective in the global south. This is precisely the gap addressed by Taxation, Human Rights, and Sustainable Development: Global South Perspectives, edited by Eghosa O. Ekhator, Newman U. Richards, and Chisa Onyejekwe, and published by Routledge in 2025. As this review will demonstrate, this book makes a significant and timely contribution to the literature for several important reasons.