Climate Change and Human Rights: How? Where? When?

Climate change poses a threat to several internationally recognized human rights, including the rights to food, a livelihood, health, a healthy environment, access to water and the rights to work and to cultural life. Actions taken to mitigate and adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change have to be centred on human rights. In negotiations for a binding international climate change instrument, nation states have been called upon to fully respect human rights in all climate-related actions. As important as this demand is, there is also the need to describe and plan how human rights can be integrated into international, national, subnational and corporate climate change strategies. This paper analyzes a few examples of national, subnational and corporate climate change policies to show how they have either enshrined human rights principles, or failed to do so

Ballot or Bullet: Protecting the Right to Vote in Nigeria

This article analyses the right to vote and what it means to the average Nigerian voter. Its starting position is that the right to vote is nowhere explicitly enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution or its electoral laws. Where, universally speaking, to vote is either a legal or constitutional right, the article argues that in none of those conceptions does such a right exist in Nigeria. Further, it shows how the Nigerian legal and electoral systems inordinately prioritize the rights of political parties and their candidates in elections over and above those of the ordinary voter. It concludes that this issue has to be satisfactorily addressed to meaningfully build upon the gains of the 2011 elections

From Reaction to Agency: A \u27Subaltern\u27 Response to William Twining\u27s Globalisation and Legal Scholarship

In this essay, it is contended that by welcoming a cosmopolitan discipline of law that encompasses \u27all levels of social relations and legal orderings\u27 (both dominant and peripheral) as well as by suggesting that the intellectual heritage of Western jurisprudence be adapted \u27to the new predicament of global law\u27, William Twining offers a platform to the world’s marginalized legal systems and formations to assert their relevance in the advancement of legal theory. In developing this argument, I will first examine what opportunities exist within Twining’s theorizing to reclaim and de-marginalize non-Western understandings of the law and its social value within the context of pluralism and globalisation. Secondly, I discuss what could be the lessons and implications of his proposals for a globalised legal theory on legal education and scholarship in the less dominant or \u27subaltern\u27 legal systems. I also suggest how scholars from subaltern territories could effectively insert their voices in the diversification and pluralization of global legal theory

Poverty in the Human Rights Jurisprudence of the Nigerian Appellate Courts (1999-2011)

The major objective of this article is to examine the extent to which the human rights jurisprudence of the Nigerian appellate courts has been sensitive and/or receptive to the socio-economic and political claims of Nigeria’s large population of the poor and marginalized. In particular, the article considers: the extent to which Nigerian human rights jurisprudence has either facilitated or hindered the efforts of the poor to ameliorate their own poverty; the kinds of conceptual apparatuses and analyses utilized by the Nigerian courts in examining the issues brought before it that concerned the specific conditions of the poor; and the key biases that are embedded in and shape Nigeria’s jurisprudential orientation. The line of cases analysed in the article indicate that the Nigerian appellate courts, as elsewhere, possess great capacity, for good or ill, to impact public policy in the field of poverty reduction

Inventing Legal Combat: Pro-Poor \u27Struggles\u27 in the Human Rights Jurisprudence of the Nigerian Appellate Courts, 1999-2011

This article deals with the question whether the jurisprudence of Nigeria’s appellate courts has helped advance or impede the struggles of the poor to assert their human rights in the country. The article begins by defining, delimiting, and situating the concepts “struggle” and “human rights as struggle.” It then moves on to identify and discuss the factors that make the struggles that the poor and the subaltern must wage to realize their human rights a tough one. Following this discussion, the article turns its attention to its main focus, i.e., an analytical examination of the ways in which the corpus of human rights jurisprudence of the Nigerian appellate courts has either aided and/or inhibited the struggles of the poor and the subaltern in that country during the period under study. The latter discussion is sub-divided into two segments: the first is focused on the engagement of these courts with the pro-poor struggles of Nigerian Labour, while the second is devoted to an analysis of the attitude of the courts to other kinds of pro-poor human rights struggles in Nigeria. In both cases, given space and other constraints, only small but representative samples of the relevant cases are discussed

Assessment of peripheral arterial disease in diabetic adults with foot ulcers in an African population

Background: Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is a recognized risk factor for diabetic foot ulceration. It was thought that PAD is not common in Sub-Saharan Africa. Studies show otherwise. It becomes necessary to assess the prevalence of PAD among diabetic adults with foot ulcers in Nigeria. The objective of the study was to assess the prevalence of PAD in diabetic subjects with foot ulcers in Nigeria.Methods: Diagnosis of PAD was made with the ankle-brachial index (ABI). Edinburgh claudication questionnaire was administered to the patients. An ABI of <0.9 is diagnostic of PAD. Risk factors for PAD were assessed. A control group of non-diabetic adults was used.Results: Sixty-seven per cent (67%) of the test group has PAD as compared to 18% of the control group. Smoking, duration of diabetes and systemic hypertension were strongly associated with PAD.Conclusions: Diabetic adults with foot ulcers in Nigeria have a high prevalence of PAD

From Reaction to Agency: A \u27Subaltern\u27 Response to William Twining\u27s Globalisation and Legal Scholarship

In this essay, it is contended that by welcoming a cosmopolitan discipline of law that encompasses \u27all levels of social relations and legal orderings\u27 (both dominant and peripheral) as well as by suggesting that the intellectual heritage of Western jurisprudence be adapted \u27to the new predicament of global law\u27, William Twining offers a platform to the world’s marginalized legal systems and formations to assert their relevance in the advancement of legal theory. In developing this argument, I will first examine what opportunities exist within Twining’s theorizing to reclaim and de-marginalize non-Western understandings of the law and its social value within the context of pluralism and globalisation. Secondly, I discuss what could be the lessons and implications of his proposals for a globalised legal theory on legal education and scholarship in the less dominant or \u27subaltern\u27 legal systems. I also suggest how scholars from subaltern territories could effectively insert their voices in the diversification and pluralization of global legal theory

Unpacking the Universal: African Human Rights Philosophy in Chinua Achebe\u27s Things Fall Apart

Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart appears to attract significant criticism for its seemingly negative offerings to human rights than for contributions to that cause that could be considered positive. My goal in this chapter is to reconstruct this image of that popular novel using the law and literature framework. I will do so at two levels. As an initial concern, I will demonstrate that Things Fall Apart offered positively to the human rights discourse contrary to persisting criticisms. Secondly, my analyses will add to the debate regarding the existence or otherwise of human rights values in Africa’s pre-colonial cultures. Despite having what could be regarded as neo-patriarchal characteristics (in spite of its “transformative power”), I will argue that the Things Fall Apart narrative is indeed a valid and credible refutation of the view that human rights is not an African value. And while it is possible to present a human rights content analysis of the book through several themes, I will place special emphasis on its treatment of the right to life, the rights of women and the right to fair hearing and a fair administration of justice

Climate Change and Human Rights: How? Where? When?

Climate change poses a threat to several internationally recognized human rights, including the rights to food, a livelihood, health, a healthy environment, access to water and the rights to work and to cultural life. Actions taken to mitigate and adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change have to be centred on human rights. In negotiations for a binding international climate change instrument, nation states have been called upon to fully respect human rights in all climate-related actions. As important as this demand is, there is also the need to describe and plan how human rights can be integrated into international, national, subnational and corporate climate change strategies. This paper analyzes a few examples of national, subnational and corporate climate change policies to show how they have either enshrined human rights principles, or failed to do so

Poverty in the Human Rights Jurisprudence of the Nigerian Appellate Courts (1999-2011)

The major objective of this article is to examine the extent to which the human rights jurisprudence of the Nigerian appellate courts has been sensitive and/or receptive to the socio-economic and political claims of Nigeria’s large population of the poor and marginalized. In particular, the article considers: the extent to which Nigerian human rights jurisprudence has either facilitated or hindered the efforts of the poor to ameliorate their own poverty; the kinds of conceptual apparatuses and analyses utilized by the Nigerian courts in examining the issues brought before it that concerned the specific conditions of the poor; and the key biases that are embedded in and shape Nigeria’s jurisprudential orientation. The line of cases analysed in the article indicate that the Nigerian appellate courts, as elsewhere, possess great capacity, for good or ill, to impact public policy in the field of poverty reduction