November 13, 2026
The Corporate Accountability & Anti-Colonial Lawmaking in Africa webinar will discuss different legal pathways within the African human rights system to hold multinational corporations accountable, provide redress to victims of corporate harm, and effect transformative change on the continent. It will hold:
Date: Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2026
Time: 9am PST / 12pm EST / 7pm SAST
There is a longstanding commitment within the African human rights system towards corporate accountability for violations of human and peoples’ rights. This has been affirmed in the jurisprudence of the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR), decisions and resolutions of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and recent efforts of African states to develop binding legal frameworks for corporations operating or based in Africa. Further, under the African human rights system, African states have distinct legal obligations to put an end to colonial and neocolonial injustice in all its forms, including related to the role of corporations in the historical and contemporary exploitation of the continent. These issues are at the forefront of current regional debates, including in the lead up to the ACtHPR’s forthcoming climate advisory opinion and with the African Union’s current thematic focus on advancing reparations for historical injustices.
Within this context, the panelists will draw on their expertise in corporate accountability frameworks, international law, and human rights to offer different analyses of African corporate accountability that are grounded in African human and peoples’ rights. In particular, panelists are invited to consider whether the African system allows for jurisprudential innovations such as direct corporate accountability that have as yet not been pursued in other human rights systems; and to explore what conditions would be required to transform progressive jurisprudence into meaningful accountability in practice.
Through this discussion, the panelists will discuss how the African human rights system is uniquely positioned as a site of innovation and promise for anti-colonial lawmaking in the region, and how its transformative potential can be leveraged in the current moment. With international law often impeding meaningful accountability and reparations, reifying injustice along colonial lines, the African human rights system is poised to offer alternate pathways towards justice.
Panelists:
-Prof. E. Tendayi Achiume, Stanford Law School and Extraordinary Professor of Jurisprudence, University of Pretoria
-Donald Deya, Chief Executive Officer of the Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU)
-Solomon A. Dersso, PhD, Former Chairperson of the ACHPR and Chairperson of The Working Group on Extractive Industries, Environment and Human Rights Violations
-Prof. James Thuo Gathii, Loyola University Chicago School of Law
-Prof. Christopher Gevers, Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), Wits University
-Moderated by S. Priya Morley, Bernstein Institute for Human Rights, NYU Law
This event is hosted by Afronomicslaw, the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), and the Bernstein Institute for Human Rights at NYU School of Law
Mode:
Webinar will be in English with simultaneous French interpretation available.
Registration:
Kindly RSVP here: Webinar