This article explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable people in South Africa in the specific context of poverty and inequality. It does so by first looking at the conceptual context and then highlighting the extent of the impact both from a constitutional and human rights context and from a legislative context. It uses the poor and vulnerable as a proxy to explore the impact of the pandemic (and the measures put in place to contain it) on the specific constitutional rights of vulnerable people, before suggesting a human rights-based approach to managing the pandemic. It concludes that, despite the South African government having undertaken some of the actions recommended, there remains room for improvement and scope for further research, as the pandemic is expected to continue for some time.

Section 162 of the South African Companies Act 71 of 2008 empowers courts to declare directors delinquent and hence to disqualify them from office. This article compares the judicial disqualification of directors under this section with the equivalent provisions in the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States of America, which have all influenced the South African act. The article compares the classes of persons who have locus standi to apply to court to disqualify a director from holding office, as well as the grounds for the judicial disqualification of a director, the duration of the disqualification, the application of a prescription period and the discretion conferred on courts to disqualify directors from office. It contends that, in empowering courts to disqualify directors from holding office, section 162 of the South African Companies Act goes too far in certain respects.

The protection of refugees languishing in camps in Africa has posed a challenge for the international community for far too long. The OAU Refugee Convention does not reflect refugee rights or provide a durable solution for refugees in host states. Over the last 50 years there have been multiple attempts to resolve what remains one of the greatest challenges facing Africa. Each resolution has clarified the steps required to enhance the situation for those most affected and to provide solutions for refugee-hosting countries in need of strategic policies and funding. This article considers recent developments in refugee law since the adoption of the New York Declaration. It specifically evaluates the benefit of the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) for African states and the refugees they host. Furthermore, because the OAU convention is the first refugee convention to make international solidarity (ie burden-sharing) a state obligation, the article assesses how the GCR builds on the convention.

Innovative services such as mobile payments are potentially transformative because they can increase access to financial services, especially in developing countries. However, such innovations can disrupt the financial services ecosystem, prompting regulators to respond in different ways. These regulatory responses often have a significant impact on the success of such innovative services. Using Nigeria's regulatory approach as a case study, this article highlights specific lessons that should inform future attempts at regulating mobile payments.

This article argues that Nigeria should introduce a competition disqualification regime for company directors as a deliberate strategy to foster corporate compliance with the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act 2018. It contends that the custodial and financial sanctions provided for under the act may not sufficiently deter directors from engaging in anti-competitive behaviour. It seeks to demonstrate that the “threat” of incarceration, which would ordinarily have a strong deterrent effect, is rarely imposed, as courts tend to prefer imposing fines on directors and individuals who breach competition law. For that reason, the article proposes that Nigeria should adopt a strategy of disqualifying directors who oversee companies that breach competition law, or who are complicit in that regard, as a means of complementing existing sanctions. In order to achieve its objective, the article examines the competition disqualification regime in the UK in order to extract valuable lessons that Nigeria can emulate.

Over the last several decades, states have demonstrated significant political commitment towards advancing protection and assistance for internally displaced persons. A notable form in which this commitment has been reflected is in the emergence of normative standards, with the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (UNGP) as the guiding text. The fact that the UNGP framework has found expression in the landscape on internal displacement is evidenced at various levels of governance. Within the African context, the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention) draws on pertinent normative frameworks, with the UNGP as the leading framework. While this point is often made in general terms, this article focuses on the extent to which the norm on internal displacement has diffused and expanded within the African context.

This article analyses the dilemmas encountered in enforcing the Kenyan law on defilement, focusing specifically on consensual sex between adolescents. It argues that, although punishing adults who have sex with minors is clearly justified, punishment cannot be justified in the case of minors who engage in “experimental” sex with each other. It challenges the current legal regime that allows only one minor (male) to be charged, and not the other (female), noting that neither of the mutual participants would feel vindicated by punishing the other. Similarly, it shows that charging both participants also poses legal and policy challenges. Consequently, it argues that charging adolescents for defilement when they have consensual sex with each other goes against the very policy that informed the adoption of the anti-defilement provisions. The article recommends that Kenya's legislation is reformed to create a legal regime that protects juveniles from sexual violation without victimizing them.

The use of experts in the review of tax cases is recognized globally. Nigeria appears to appreciate the importance of this practice. However, several previous attempts to establish tax courts or tribunals have been frustrated due to a lack of constitutional support. In the search for a better model for Nigeria, this article examines the US and Canadian experiences of using specialized tax courts or tribunals to see what lessons Nigeria could learn. The two north American experiments justify the use of tax courts as better alternatives to what Nigeria currently has. In particular, the Canadian experience appears to be more suited to the Nigerian context. Therefore, it is argued that Nigeria's 1999 Constitution should be amended to establish a Tax Court of Nigeria, which should be recognized as a superior court of record.

This article critically examines the admiralty jurisdiction of the Federal High Court of Nigeria in relation to claims arising from combined transport shipping. It questions the rationale for the continued circumscription of the court's admiralty jurisdiction to activities on navigable waters based on English law pedigree. It argues that, in the present era of containerization and combined transport shipping, it has become imperative to unshackle Nigerian courts from English antecedents that limit the admiralty jurisdiction of the court to activities on the high seas. The article identifies extant national legislation, a continental instrument and recent judicial authorities that provide the basis for expanding the Federal High Court's admiralty jurisdiction to accommodate the adjudication of claims derived from combined transport shipping beyond the locale of the high seas.

The COVID-19 pandemic has continued to exert enormous pressure on public health policies and systems, with far-reaching implications. The race for vaccines has raised important intellectual property rights issues. These are evident in the need to advance the public interest and in the obligation of governments to address the challenge of access to vaccines, especially in sub-Saharan countries like Nigeria with relatively underdeveloped healthcare and innovation ecosystems. While the Nigerian Patents and Designs Act (PDA) establishes a compulsory licence regime that affords access to patented drugs, existing public healthcare is severely challenged in providing access to new medicines. This article examines the framework for patent protection of pharmaceuticals designed to meet public health challenges, such as those presented by the pandemic. It recommends the implementation of a government use provision under the PDA, with a view to addressing the challenge of access to COVID-19 vaccines.

This article concerns the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It analyses the sanitary measures that the government has taken to respond to the pandemic since March 2020, the way these measures are enforced, and the extent to which women comply with the measures. The article draws from desk research and empirical data from the eastern city of Bukavu, where the research team conducted 134 structured interviews. The findings show widespread willingness to comply with some of the main measures because of fear of sanctions, fear of the pandemic and because of trust in the state or church. The article argues that many women hold the state accountable for the success in containing the virus, but also criticize the state for not providing livelihood assistance during the state of emergency. Further research is needed to assess the impact of COVID-19 on state legitimacy.

This article explores the responsibility to protect (R2P) as an organizing concept for preventing, addressing and finding durable solutions to internal displacement in Africa. While the most innovative norms for protecting the forcibly displaced have been conceptualized in Africa, they have not durably addressed displacement, due to limitations in implementation. R2P has similarly faced criticisms emanating from a lack of clarity and distrust. Restated norms underlying frameworks for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and R2P complement each other, and can be operationalized simultaneously through a more credible regional approach, to encourage effective protection of IDPs in Africa. The article explores pillar one, pillar two and the non-coercive elements of pillar three of R2P, and its underlying moral principles, using Kenya as a case study of the process of seeking to secure state responsibility for the protection of displaced civilians victimized by mass atrocities.

The recent Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) judgment in Lazarus Mbethe v United Manganese of Kalahari raises jurisprudential questions regarding statutory derivative actions in South Africa. For example, the SCA did not agree with the court a quo's ruling that the discretion to be exercised by the court is limited by provisions of section 165(5). The SCA also questioned whether it is necessary for South African courts to follow the good faith criterion in the Australian case of Swansson v Pratt as adopted into South African law through Mouritzen v Greystones Enterprises (Pty) Ltd & Another. This article contributes to these questions, and proposes possible criteria for other requirements in section 165(5)(b) of the Companies Act 71 of 2008. These other requirements are that the statutory derivative action proceedings must involve “a trial of a serious question of material consequence to a company” and that proceedings be “in the best interests of the company”.

Infringement of broadcasts is often treated as a crime. The Nigerian Constitution guarantees that no-one can be prosecuted for any act that is not prescribed in a written law. Section 20 of Nigeria's Copyright Act only criminalizes dealing with infringing copies. A “copy” is defined in terms of material form. An infringing broadcast therefore connotes a recorded broadcast or a copy of a broadcast. This article argues that, statutorily, not every act that gives rise to civil liability for broadcast copyright infringement constitutes a crime. The article reviews the first broadcast copyright prosecution Court of Appeal decision in Eno v Nigerian Copyright Commission. Eno was unlawfully prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned. The article seeks to stem the wave of prosecutions on the type of charges used in Eno. In the absence of law reform, the prosecutions based on the line of charges in Eno constitute a fracturing of constitutional rights.

In this case, the Nigerian Supreme Court had the opportunity to build on the foundations of Nigerian trust law. The court was faced with facts that should have led to the implication of a resulting trust in favour of the appellant, since he had purchased a large parcel of land in the name of the respondent. While accepting that it made no contribution to the purchase or development of the land, the respondent sought to escape its fiduciary duty by alleging illegality, using the provisions of the Land Use Act as a statutory shield. The Nigerian Supreme Court endorsed the respondent's position, by electing to focus on the breach of the statute, while ignoring that equity would not allow a statute to be used as an instrument of fraud. This article shows how the court erred, as the statutory breach was not fatal to the appellant's claim: equity does not demand that its suitors have led blameless lives.

Arguably the least discussed root cause of internal displacement, harmful practices are a prevalent concern in many African societies. The explicit mention of harmful practices is one of the many innovations of the Kampala Convention and reinforce its forward-looking, context-specific focus on Africa. This article argues that the convention has an absolute prohibition of harmful practices. This is an important starting point from which to discuss the content of states’ obligation to set measures for preventing harmful practices. However, in the event that displacement occurs due to these practices, it is important that protection, humanitarian assistance and durable solutions are provided. This article argues that states must set measures for ensuring that non-state actors are held accountable in the event that they orchestrate harmful practices. In fostering compliance, this article argues that there is an important role for institutions beyond the state, particularly those emphasized under article 14 of the convention.

This article argues that the lockdown imposed in Sudan due to the COVID-19 pandemic has seriously affected the livelihood of vulnerable populations and their right to live a dignified life. It explores how emergency measures were aimed at containing the spread of the pandemic. The article argues that these measures have seriously affected the enjoyment of core economic and social rights, particularly in the context of a weak legislative framework of social protection. It concludes by arguing that Sudan's transitional government is not subject to parliamentary scrutiny and exercises legislative and executive powers that are de facto illegitimate, as they are not subject to review by the courts and because of the current suspension of constitutional organs and governance structures. This incomplete governance structure is concerning from a rule of law perspective and has prevented scrutiny of COVID-19 emergency measures, particularly those affecting the basic rights of vulnerable groups.