The development of strategies for the conservation and wise use of wetlands in Uganda is significant for what it reveals about how law contributes to the sustainable management of natural resources in poor countries in general. The highly inter-disciplinary and cross-sectoral management requirements of wetlands make this issue one of the most challenging, and wetlands constitute today the single most important environmental issue being addressed by the Ugandan government. As part of this effort, the legal frameworks for property rights and local government are being overhauled so as to provide a sounder basis for environmental management in this field. This article analyses the Ugandan approach to wetlands management and the role of property rights and local government in the environmental policy-making process.

The statement above is an admission of failure, or neglect, to design a policy for livestock production and development. The admission appears t o be almost contradictory. Nyerere's leadership of Tanzania had its landmarks, the most indelible of which is probably the Arusha Declaration with its particularly heavy bias towards rural development in its policy objectives. Yet that rural bias conspicuously excluded the role of pastoral communities and their potential in the development of Tanzania's rural economy. The pastoralists are not a majority but constitute a substantial portion of the population. They are entitled, as of right, to proportionate attention by national policies, as well as access to national resources, especially land, proportionate to their needs and potential, just like the cultivators. But government policies in Tanzania have marginalized pastoralists and sometimes even their rights and their very presence have been ignored.

The history of illegal farming activities in certain forest reserves in the Western Region of Ghana demonstrates the magnitude of the problems facing conservationists, administrators and forestry personnel i n developing countries. The objective of this article is to explore briefly some of those problems and to reflect on the value of a human rights approach to environmental protection in the light of events in Western Ghana. First, the article presents evidence of the scale of illegal farming i n some forest reserves in the Western Region, before discussing the various initiatives taken since the 1960s to reserve and protect forest land in this Region. The administrative, legal and political obstacles to their success are highlighted as is the role played by competing interest groups. The implications of this analysis for the concept of environmental rights is then briefly discussed and alternative proposals for tackling this problem suggested.

The question of human rights approaches to environmental protection is particularly pertinent in South Africa because its people are currently negotiating a set of constitutional principles which will lay the foundation for a future democratic and representative government in the country. The future direction of South African human rights law and environmental law particularly will be shaped by events in the near future as a new bill of rights is likely to include an environmental clause. The next few months will see the tabling of a set of constitutional principles and a draft bill of rights, the establishment of a transitional executive and elections for a constituent assembly. The latter body will finalize the form and content of a new constitution and bill of rights, drafts of which are currently being negotiated and circulated for comment by the political role players in the negotiating process. In broad constitutional terms, South Africa is departing from the Westminster model of parliamentary sovereignty on which its constitutional structure has been traditionally based and is moving towards the American model of public power being subjected to norms laid down in a bill of rights. The courts exercising their power of review will play a vital role in ensuring the success of the new dispensation. While the new bill of rights will obviously have vertical application, meaning that it will serve as a standard against which future parliamentary statutes will be measured, it is not yet clear whether it will also have horizontal application, whereby alleged contraventions of constitutional norms will be used by private legal persons in disputes between themselves.

In March 1993 it was reported in a national newspaper in Zimbabwe that four men convicted of murder and under sentence of death were to be executed shortly. They were all sentenced between 1987 and 1988 although in all but one case their appeals were not heard and dismissed by the Supreme Court until 1991. The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) obtained a provisional order from the Supreme Court interdicting the respondents from carrying out the sentences, pending a decision as to whether to (i) declare that the delay in carrying out the sentences of death constituted a contravention of section 15(1) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe; and (ii) order that such sentences be permanently stayed. Section 15(1) provides that: