A new opportunity for international human rights litigation in West Africa was presented in 2005 when the Economic Community of West African States adopted a protocol to empower its judicial organ, the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, to determine cases of human rights violation that occur in ECOWAS member states. Since then, several human rights claims have been brought before the court. However, critical questions concerning the legality of the new mandate and the suitability of the court to exercise a human rights jurisdiction have lingered. Beginning with an inquiry into the foundation within ECOWAS for the exercise of a human rights jurisdiction, this article analyses the legitimacy of the human rights mandate of the ECOWAS court and interrogates crucial issues relevant to the effectiveness of the mandate. The article suggests ways to enhance execution of the mandate and concludes with a call for careful judicial navigation in the exercise of the court's expanded jurisdiction.

This article critiques the subject of patent protection of drugs in the light of the threat posed by HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. It contends that the basis for sustaining the prevailing international patent system in developing countries is a “myth”: one of deception. This “myth” is validated by highlighting the dysfunctions associated with the prevailing international patent system. The article proposes the adoption of diverse patent systems that would suit the cultural and human development needs of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Such diversity implies a drug patent model that meets human needs and shows respect for communal interests, a model that permits differences and is amenable to change in the light of socio-economic needs, a model that confronts “unfreedoms” which constrain human development, and a model that ensures respect and protection for the fundamental right to health care.

In the Mozambican context of the state amnesty for civil war crimes, war survivors have used their local ethics of reciprocity to create justice. This article analyses how survivors have attempted to persuade judges in traditional courts to adjudicate in serious wartime disputes. These judges, who have no official mandate to redress wartime offences, tried to preserve the conflicting interests of the litigants and the state. This positioning, coupled with the fact that the local ethics of reciprocity are embedded in uneven power and gender relations, resulted in some cases being adjudicated and others not, and in some disputes receiving no gender justice. Nevertheless, some of the interventions indicate that national and international institutions of justice are not the only ones engaged in the struggle against impunity for wartime crimes. In Mozambique, specific attention must be paid to the study of traditional justice mechanisms as fonts of redress for wartime crimes and for the long-term contribution they can make.

This article examines developments in the East African Community from October 2006 to April 2007, against the background of the challenge to the “elections” of members of the East African Legislative Assembly. The article also examines the saga over the Kenyan regional court judges, emanating from the decision to grant an injunction restraining the nine Kenyan nominees to the Assembly from taking office and to dismiss a recusal application brought against the court's Kenyan judges. The article explores the hurried amendments to the Community treaty in a largely political response to the regional court's decisions and the implications for the future of the court and the Community. The haste involved in amending the treaty itself raises concerns over the growing tendency to flout processes and procedures at the national and community levels for the sake of political expedience on the part of the partner states.

Between 1999 and 2007, a popular Labour-led movement led a pro-poor struggle to resist the fuel price hike policy of the Nigerian government. Waged in the context of the poverty in which nearly 70 per cent of Nigerians lived, the operation of powerful incentives to raise fuel prices, and Labour's extraordinary socio-political leverage, these struggles triggered much government frustration. One of the strategies adopted by the government to legitimize its attempt to repress the movement was to resort to the courts. This article analyses, from a socio-legal perspective, the key cases relating to the validity of the government's attempts to repress the struggles. The article concludes that, although both pro- and anti-movement trends can be observed in the jurisprudence, the anti-movement tendency having so far prevailed in terms of formal legal precedent, the pro-movement (ie pro-poor) decisions have, as a result of their massive popular legitimacy, actually functioned as the “living law.”

Do the terms of the Nigerian Land Use Act permit the application of equitable principles to transactions under it? More particularly, could equity be used to enforce null and void transactions under the Act? Although the Supreme Court answered these questions in the negative in Ajilo, other decisions of the Supreme Court, as well as some sections of the Act itself, suggest that the Act is not incompatible with equitable principles. Nor is it contrary to public policy to enforce null and void transactions under the Act through the intervention of equity. Two relevant equitable concepts are resulting and constructive trusts. While constructive trusts have found some fertile soil in Nigerian equity jurisprudence (despite the discordant tune in Ajilo), Nigerian courts seem to struggle with the principles of resulting trust. This article suggests that resulting and constructive trusts are proper instruments for the interpretation and application of the Act and that Ajilo should be overruled.

The Nicholson judgment was clearly a precipitating factor in the resignation of former South African President Thabo Mbeki in 2008. Engaging with the judgment in its own terms, this note first puts forward a best legal interpretation of the judgment, covering the doctrines of prosecutorial independence and legitimate expectations. It then identifies the degree to which the comment in the judgment may be termed politically activist. In the authors' view, Nicholson tackled political issues in his judgment that he need not have: in particular, allegations of executive interference in the independence of the prosecutions authority. Assuming that Nicholson J's text may be read as an attempt to bolster the legitimacy of the judiciary, the note explores whether it succeeds on those terms and concludes that the judgment is ultimately an example of failed dramatic art.