Intellectual property rights protection is at the forefront of some of the major controversies regarding the impact of globalization. African countries have in recent years participated to an unprecedented degree in both international and bilateral initiatives dealing with intellectual property. The negotiating positions have been varied and, from a regional perspective, have not been coherent at some levels, with different countries advancing different positions. African countries have adopted regional integration as a strategy to deal with the challenges of globalization. Regional integration is believed to increase negotiating capacities and competitiveness in global trade. It is also believed to improve access to foreign technology. The African Union is facilitating the establishment of a continental intellectual property body. Accordingly, the main aim of this article is to discuss the establishment of the Pan-African Intellectual Property Organization in line with the African Union's vision for regional integration.

This article seeks to examine the paradox of Boko Haram terrorism and Nigeria's counter-terrorism efforts, personified by the Joint Task Force (JTF). While posing the challenge of human rights abuses by the JTF in its counter-Boko Haram operations, the article contends that, whereas the terrorists' activities violate the rights of victims, the JTF's actions have also resulted in significant human rights abuses against innocent civilians. It argues that, despite Nigeria's obligations under the plenitude of international human rights treaties, non-domestication of these treaties by Nigeria has rendered them insignificant. The article therefore recommends alternative approaches to this challenge. Nigeria should domesticate the catalogue of international human rights instruments to which it has acceded, enact rules of engagement for law enforcement operations by security forces, develop a counter-terrorism strategy that is subject to robust engagement with all stakeholders, and strengthen its existing human rights accountability mechanisms, such as the law courts, legislature and National Human Rights Commission.

The development of global standards has led to a convergence in domestic regulations in the financial services sectors. Principles-based regulations (PBRs) have become essential for effective regulatory efforts in insurance and other financial services because of their flexibility, support for regulatory efficiency and the development of a good compliance culture amongst the regulated. The legal framework of the Nigerian insurance industry mainly contains prescriptive and performance-based regimes that have become ineffective as regulatory strategies. This article recommends the adoption of PBRs from available models found in international standard setting organizations such as the International Association of Insurance Supervisors, other jurisdictions such as the UK's Prudential Regulation Authority and Financial Conduct Authority, together with international trade regimes such as the General Agreement on Trade in Services. It reviews aspects of Nigerian insurance industry regulations supporting PBRs and highlights laws not supportive of PBRs and therefore requiring reform.

Prior to 2007, Nigerian public procurement was not formally regulated, in the sense that there was no law governing procurement at the federal or state level. This changed with the enactment in 2007 of the Public Procurement Act. This act was passed on the recommendation of the World Bank, which had conducted a country procurement assessment report on Nigeria in 1999. This article seeks to determine whether the Public Procurement Act meets the requirements of international best practice. The article examines what may be regarded as international best practice in the public procurement context and analyses whether the Nigerian Public Procurement Act contains provisions which accord with this practice. It also considers what factors are limiting the adoption of international best practice in the Nigerian context.

Immunity is an exemption conferred on a person in order to protect him from litigation or persecution. The Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended accords immunity to the president, vice-president, governors and deputy governors only. The import of this constitutional conferment is that no civil or criminal proceedings should be instituted against them while in office. This singular feature of the immunity clause emphasizes the functional necessity of the immunity which the constitution canvasses for these political office holders. A trial relating to any crime committed by any of them can commence after their tenure in office expires. This raises the issues that evidence against them might have been destroyed, prosecution witnesses may die before the trial commences and changes in the law can enable them to evade justice.

Many jurisdictions internationally have adopted some form of solvency-based threshold to protect creditors from opportunistic or abusive distributions being paid from corporate capital. When a legislative “test” for distributions involves an enquiry that is too heavily based on a company's balance sheet, and thus on the integrity of the financial reporting standards underpinning its preparation, the utility of such thresholds becomes questionable on a similar basis to that on which the effectiveness of the capital maintenance doctrine has been challenged. Even the addition of a “liquidity” threshold that shifts the emphasis away from a company's balance sheet appears to presume that a corporation's financial health can be accurately determined from its financial statements. This article explores the difficulties involved in so-called “solvency-based” thresholds for distributions and considers other sources of creditor protection that may be more reliable.

Federalism is increasingly promoted and utilized in multi-ethnic countries as a means to guarantee minority rights and safeguard the harmony and integrity of the polity and state. Yet, due to the unfeasibility of achieving a perfect overlap between ethnic and territorial boundaries, every ethnic-based territory will contain ethnic minority groups. This is also the case in the Ethiopian Federation where all nine regions are ethnically heterogeneous, albeit to different degrees. This article investigates how Ethiopia's regions are approaching their minority groups by analysing the relevant regional constitutions and laws. The analysis shows that the main minority protection mechanism is the establishment of ethnic-based local governments. Although this device is not without merit as far as minority protection is concerned, the impracticality of achieving ethnically homogeneous territories is its major limitation. The article therefore concludes by recommending a number of complementary legal instruments striving for more comprehensive minority protection.

While the Botswana Competition Act creates a hierarchical relationship between the Competition Commission and the Competition Authority, it also confers on the Competition Commission judicial powers over competition cases involving the Competition Authority and/or third parties. Although the Competition Authority's decisions have not yet been tested before either the Competition Commission or the High Court, this article argues that the institutional structure underpinning the Competition Authority is not sound, as it opens the Competition Commission to potential attacks of bias and other constitutional challenges. This article therefore makes a case for the creation of two separate bodies: one concerned purely with adjudicating competition cases and the other with administrative oversight of the Competition Authority.