Stand-Alone Posts

We are thrilled to announce the second edition of the Afronomicslaw Academic Forum Conference, following the tremendous success of our inaugural event.

When Kenya’s history is written, June 25, 2024 will live in infamy. It will be remembered as the day that an organic GenZ peaceful protest movement against financial austerity imposed by the government of President Ruto was repressed with a violent militarized response. Abductions and disappearances of protesters, internet shutdowns, extrajudicial executions, and threats of shutting down TV Stations signal that President Ruto is ready defend his vastly unpopular and unnecessary financial austerity measures at any cost. Even more, the deployment of the Kenyan Defense Forces in response to legitimate GenZ protests is inconsistent with Article 241 (2) (c) of the 2010 Constitution of Kenya that requires prior approval of the National. The deployment of these forces will only serve to militarily install austerity and to shut down legitimate protests and public debate.

The Transnational Association of Legal Scholars (TALS) is a group of legal scholars experienced in research and supervision and interested in the conduct and method of research in law.

This webinar will discuss accountability in Kenya’s proposed debt swaps, with a focus on the case of In the Matter of the Treaty for the Establishment of the EAC: Eugenia Wanjiru Gikonyo v The Attorney-General of the Republic of Kenya (EACJ Debt Swaps Case). The case was recently filed at the East African Court of Justice, by Ms. Gikonyo and Afronomicslaw.

The Fourth Biennial Conference of the South Asian International Economic Law Network (SAIELN) will take place on 16th - 18th December 2024 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in collaboration with the Open University of Sri Lanka.

I immensely enjoyed reading Dr. Mbori’s piece in Afronomicslaw titled ‘Hidden in Plain Sight: Kenyan Supreme Court Shooting is own Foot on Merits Review and Appellate Jurisdiction in Continuing Supremacy Battle with the East Africa Court of Justice (EACJ). I now have the pleasure of partially disagreeing with him particularly on whether the EACJ has (merit) review jurisdiction over national laws. This comment is not an attempt at exhaustively analysing the Supreme Court Advisory Opinion in Reference No. E001 of 2022. I found that Advisory Opinion to be surface-level, a bit incoherent and internally inconsistent, and devoid of adequate reasoning. As such, I refrain from commenting on other key issues in the Advisory Opinion. Some of those issues are: how the Court determined that it has jurisdiction to issue the opinion; the relationship between international and municipal law; the Court’s repeated failure to distinguish sources of international law and their interaction with municipal law; the court’s (misplaced) discussion on subsidiarity and margin of appreciation, and the apportionment of interpretation and application functions between the EACJ and domestic courts. Rather, my comment is restricted to the question of whether the EACJ has (merit) review jurisdiction over national laws, which the Supreme Court answered in the negative and which Dr. Mbori answers in the affirmative. I partially disagree with both the Supreme Court and Dr. Mbori, but for different albeit related reasons.

The case filed by Afronomicslaw with Wanjiru Gikonyo as Applicant is brought under Article 30 of the EAC Treaty. Article 30 of the EAC Treaty allows individuals and Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) who are residents of the community to bring cases against partner states of the EAC where these partner states violate the law.