Human Rights

The AfronomicsLaw Academic Forum (West Africa) hosted the second edition of the AfronomicsLaw Lab Series on the 23rd of October 2025. This particular session was led by Sâ Benjamin Traoré, who is an Associate Professor at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University. The topic was: "The Imperative of an Africa-focused Approach to Business and Human Rights in Africa".

Collins C Ajibo’s important book, The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement: Legal and Policy Frameworks (Routledge, 2024), accomplishes an impressive systematization of the AfCFTA and its protocols, offering critical insights into the policy decisions which inform this international law regime. The AfCFTA is transforming international law, and Ajibo discusses with expertise its most salient innovations, including its extensive interlinkage to sustainable development goals and other regimes, along with concrete proposals for its successful implementation.

The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement: Legal and Policy Frameworks provides a comprehensive assessment of the African economic integration through the prism and principles of international economic law. The analysis is contextualized within the prevailing regional economic integrations, the WTO and the peculiarity of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). Similarly, legal analysis is bolstered by the political economy of the AfCFTA, illustrating the complex interplay of diverse factors that shape the AfCFTA.

In July, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights released its Advisory Opinion on Climate Emergency and Human Rights. The findings of the Court establish a clear path on how states must address climate change under a human rights and environmental perspective.

In July, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights released its Advisory Opinion on Climate Emergency and Human Rights. The findings of the Court establish a clear path on how states must address climate change under a human rights and environmental perspective. The purpose of this post is to assess the main environmental breakthroughs of this Advisory Opinion as well as the business & human rights assessment the Court does on this matter.

This post examines this challenge for political organs and for international law through both a practical and theoretical lens. The practical side entails a recounting of the brief life of the UN’s International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE), a commission of inquiry of the Human Rights Council on which I served in 2022 and 2023. The theoretical side builds on this case study to ask what is realistic and still principled to expect of political bodies in enforcing international law in a way that reduces the prospects of double standards. Drawing on the concept of impartiality and the unavoidability of selectivity, I argue that HRC inquiries should proceed on the basis of the gravity of violations to avoid double standards (which are distinct from selectivity).

The symposium brings together four contributions by four distinguished authors. The contributions articulate both the potential and pitfalls of the aspirations/capabilities model of the nexus and highlight particularities when the framing is applied together with other layers (gender, climate crisis, refugees). Two of the contributions discuss their topic using the term “migration” while others look into the issue in the context of “refugees.” Notwithstanding the importance of the distinction between “migrants” and “refugees” in current global frameworks, the purpose here is to stimulate debate that goes beyond this fluid dichotomy. In popular parlance, the term “refugees” is used to connote “migrants” or “non-citizens” in general.

Therefore, it is important to analyse the impact of these International Financial Institutions in the development of African countries which they operate in. It is also necessary to assess their accountability mechanisms and legal personalities in line with International Law, the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment and the United Nations Guiding Principles on Human Rights Impact Assessments of Economic Reforms. This is because their regulation and compliance with International Standards and International Law is an important and contemporary area which would inform their effectiveness and their contribution to sustainable development while considering the UN 2030 Agenda and 2063 Agenda for Africa.

In many African countries, the protection and promotion of human rights is enshrined in national laws including domestic constitutions, policies, and guidelines. Many African countries are signatories to a plethora of conventions on human rights including the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. However, in several African countries, ordinarily, socio-economic rights are not enforceable because socio-economic rights are not explicitly provided in many national constitutions. Furthermore, right to research as an evolutive and burgeoning framework in the African copyright system adds to this mix. Scholars including Okorie have advocated for the development of the right to research as a complete or explicit defence to copyright infractions or as user rights. However, the development of an explicit right to research in the African copyright context is afflicted with a plethora of obstacles. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic has further restricted access to information and academic materials especially in digital formats and furthermore, many African libraries and institutions are ill-equipped to perform their role of enabling access to information. Hence, this recent book – The Right to Research in Africa: Exploring the Copyright and Human Rights Interface by Desmond Oriakhogba is an important and innovative addition to this debate. Oriakhogba argues for a reconceptualization of the African copyright system from explicit human rights law perspectives as means of localising the right to research in the African context.