COMMENT Prof. Dr. Thoko Kaime 3 June 2021 This month, the African Legal Studies blog focuses on children’s rights, a topic that tracks very close to my heart. In introducing this month’s series of contributions, I discuss children’s rights in relation to another topic of great interest in my practice as a public international lawyer:…
ANALYSIS Prof. Dr. Stefan Ouma 31 May 2021 Books abound on what is wrong with economics (Chang 2014; Keen 2011; Nelson 2018, Mazzucato 2018, Raworth 2018, Stanford 2015), and what we would have to do to change it. Given the little change we have seen in economics training and policy-effective economic thinking since the global…
OPINION Prof. Dr. Susan Arndt 28 May 2021 I wish to thank Thoko Kaime for his most powerful intervention. Indeed, the longevity of racism is in need of an allyship of intervention in the “very urgency of the now”, to cite Dr. Marin Luther King Jr. resistant wording. In the midst of the current Black…
ANALYSIS David Malluche 28 May 2021 In the wake of the recent global rise of Anti-Racist movements, local activists and scholars have brought increasing attention to the racial legacies of slavery within the Arab-Muslim world.[1] Whereas the opening of a public debate on racism is a relatively new development in many North African and Middle…
COMMENT Lena Scheibinger 21 May 2021 Former settler colonies in Southern Africa like Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa are characterized by former unlawful land seizure resulting in contemporary unequal distribution of land property and related economic power. In Zimbabwe, during British colonial rule about 6,000 large scale white farmers and a few foreign agro-industrial…
COMMENT Dyoniz Kindata 21 May 2021 “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr 1963[1] This statement, by Martin Luther King…
COMMENT Dr. Serawit Debele 14 May 2021 Introducing this series, Prof. Kaime writes about the dangers of the pacifying tendencies from those who “suggest a toning down of the rhetoric on account that it is too radical or too offensive or that it does not build bridges.” These tendencies are exactly what James Baldwin summarised…
ANALYSIS Lena Scheibinger 12 May 2021 Following some pioneering initiatives in the neighbouring East African Community,[i] the government of Malawi imposed a ban on thin plastic bags in March 2015.[ii] However, this progressive move of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining was overturned by the High Court after a number of plastic manufacturers…
Intersectionality as a Key Concept for the Protection Against Multiple Discrimination The concept of intersectionality takes into account the interpenetration of various identity categories like race, gender, class, sexuality and disability as well as the structural interlocking of multiple forms of oppression like racism, sexism, classism and heterosexism by using an analogy to traffic: “Discrimination,…
Recently, the Chair for African Legal Studies hosted a seminar on key issues in African law. The seminar focused on key emerging legal issues on the African continent, addressing topical questions ranging from human rights, sustainability governance, regional integration, constitutionalism to comparative law. Interesting guest lecturers presented their field of research, followed by vivid discussions.…