International Court of Justice

International legal scholarship on migration remains obsessively focused on migration from the global north to the global south. Even knowledge production anchored in critical traditions within international law, such as Third World Approaches to International Law (“TWAIL”), tends to skew in the direction of analysis that centers Third World encounters with the First. This general orientation comes at the costly expense of a deeper understanding of what Oreva Olakpe terms “South-South migrations” in her powerful intervention addressing this glaring shortcoming in the literature. Neglect of detailed study of experiences of international law in the global south, and in South-South relations, results in more than a merely incomplete picture of the nature of international law.

The recently released book by Oyeniyi Abe: Implementing Business and Human Rights Norms in Africa (Routledge 2022) is a comprehensive analysis of human and environmental rights impact of business activities in Africa. The book discusses conceptual and practical issues arising in the Business and Human Rights (BHRs) landscape in Africa. Furthermore, the book contains instructive developments on competing theories on corporate international human rights obligations and the range of remedies available to rights holders and 'victims' of corporate misconduct. Even more, commanding is the author's choice to present in accessible manner case studies of Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa.

In the final post of the symposium on Judge Cançado Trindade, the guest editors interview judge Brant, from the International Court of Justice, to talk about the impact of Cançado’s scholarship in Brazil and in international law.

There is renewed interest in the Nigeria- Sao Tome and Principle (STP) Joint Development Zone (JDZ). This is explored in a published chapter in the Nigerian Yearbook of International law (with co-authors). This chapter focused on the Nigeria-STP JDZ as an exemplar of a cooperative approach to maritime boundary delimitation and assesses the suitability of the particular JDZ model chosen. Therefore, this appears to be an excellent opportunity to explore the broader theme of maritime boundary zones of Nigerian vis-à-vis international maritime law. This essay argues that joint development in the spirit of a duty to cooperate within the Gulf of Guinea, will represent a Pan-African and sustainable vision, for the future exploration and exploitation of natural resources, including living resources such as Fisheries.

Over the past few decades, the term ‘resource curse’ has entered the policy domain and has been used to describe how countries in Africa, and the Global South more generally, which are endowed with natural wealth, are unable to develop and cannot avoid declining into violent conflict. In the collective imaginary, wars in different African countries, such as Angola, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and Liberia have been associated with brutal conflict waged by rebels driven by the lust for 'blood diamonds.'

This blog post highlights the International Law encounter at WBNUJS for the undergraduate programme in addition to the incidental confrontations with International Law for students and my reflections of the same.

I believe that participating in additional trainings, such as Teaching and Researching International Law (TRILA) of the Centre for International Law (CIL) of the National University of Singapore, is helpful in learning and implementing the most effective teaching methods for international law.

As part of research, ILRSC introduced a booklet series on international law and Nepal in the beginning of 2020. The first booklet is on the significance of international law. Others are on Customary International Law, TWAIL, and Treaties. These are yet to be published. Student interns work as research assistants for these booklets. This is a small attempt to keep afloat the interest in PIL despite the paucity of resources.

It is through increased research and publications in Africa, about Africa’s experiences with norms and practices of the international society, that the TWAIL aspirations of alternative narratives and accounts that will compel emerging rules of international law and their institutions to be more just, fair, balanced and equitable to the region, may be realised.

This contribution highlights two points made in the latest report of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights on Business and Human Rights (2019), which, in the future, might well transcend the debate in the Americas: the clear definition of a State obligation to regulate enterprise due diligence in national law, creating an indirectly binding natureof the until now voluntary Pillar II of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, and the insufficiency of adopting public policies (without regulation) on the matter to comply with that obligation, risking to be found acquiescent in business behavior that violates human rights.