This book tracks and critiques the impact of the internet in Africa. It explores the legal policy implications of, and legal responses to, the internet in matters straddling human rights, development, trade, criminal law, intellectual property, and social justice from the perspective of several African countries and the region. Well-known and emerging African scholars consider whether access to the internet is a human right, the implications on the right to privacy, e-commerce, cybercrime, the opportunities and dangers of admitting electronic evidence, the balancing of freedom of expression with the protection of intellectual property, and how different African legal systems address this tension. This book will be an invaluable resource for a wide range of stakeholders, including researchers, scholars and postgraduate students; policymakers and legislators; lawyers and judicial officers; crime-fighting agencies; national human rights institutions; civil society organisations; international and regional organisations; and human rights monitoring bodies.

An integrative rights-based approach to human development in Africaby Dejo Olowu2009ISBN: 978-0-9814124-6-7Pages: x 322Print version: AvailableElectronic version: Free PDF available.

This important new book provides a framework for complementarity between promoting and protecting human rights and combating corruption. The book makes three major points regarding the relationship between corruption and human rights law. First, corruption per se is a human rights violation, insofar as it interferes with the right of the people to dispose of their natural wealth and resources and thereby increases poverty and frustrates socio-economic development. Second, corruption leads to a multitude of human rights violations. Third, the book demonstrates that human rights mechanisms have the capacity to provide more effective remedies to victims of corruption than can other criminal and civil legal mechanisms. The book takes up one of the pervasive problems of governance--large-scale corruption--to examine its impact on human rights and the degree to which a human rights approach to confronting corruption can buttress the traditional criminal law response. It examines three major aspects of human rights in practice--the importance of governing structures in the implementation and enjoyment of human rights, the relationship between corruption, poverty and underdevelopment, and the threat that systemic poverty poses to the entire human rights edifice. The book is a very significant contribution to the literature on good governance, human rights and the rule of law in Africa. Endorsements "Kolawole Olaniyan has taken up one of the pervasive problems of governance - large-scale corruption - to examine its impact on human rights and the degree to which a human rights approach to confronting corruption can buttress the traditional criminal law response. His focus is Africa, but the valuable lessons he teaches in this comprehensive study can resonate throughout the world. The result is a comprehensive and holistic legal framework for addressing some of the root causes of human rights violations and poverty, not only in Africa, but wherever corruption exists." Dinah Shelton Manatt/Ahn Professor of International Law (emeritus) The George Washington University Law School "This book demonstrates the author's mastery of complex jurisprudential and theoretical discourses. His review of the existing literature is extensive, the doctrinal analysis rigorous and the treatment of the subject innovative. Dr. Olaniyan's willingness to introduce fresh eyes to the ways in which doctrine contributes to an understanding of seemingly mundane problems lays the foundation for fertile trajectories from which future scholars can launch exciting inquiries on the relationship between corruption and human rights. Overall, this book makes an important and valuable contribution to the growth and understanding of the corruption/human rights discourse as it is presently constructed." Ndiva Kofele-Kale, University Distinguished Professor of Law, SMU Dedman School of Law, Dallas, USA.

This book tracks and critiques the impact of the internet in Africa. It explores the legal policy implications of, and legal responses to, the internet in matters straddling human rights, development, trade, criminal law, intellectual property and social justice from the perspective of several African countries and the region. Well-known and emerging African scholars consider whether access to the internet is a human right, the implications on the right to privacy, e-commerce, cybercrime, the opportunities and dangers of admitting electronic evidence, the balancing of freedom of expression with the protection of intellectual property and how different African legal systems address this tension. This book will be an invaluable resource for a wide range of stakeholders, including researchers, scholars and postgraduate students; policymakers and legislators; lawyers and judicial officers; crime-fighting agencies; national human rights institutions; civil society organisations; international and regional organisations; and human rights monitoring bodies.

4.3 Gender and the Net

The right to development (RTD) seeks to address global inequities hidden in world politics and global institutions through the game of influences played by powerful actors. The negative impacts of the Atlantic slave trade, colonialism, and the subjugation of Africa through globalisation and its institutions are key factors that have caused Africa and African people claiming their RTD. This book examines how the African continent protects the right to development, examining the nature of the RTD and controversies surrounding it and how it is implemented. The book then goes onto explore the RTD at the regional level including through the jurisprudence of the African Commission and the African Court on Human Rights, at the sub-regional level including in sub-regional courts and tribunals, at the national levels through case studies and through the African Union governance institutions. Through this examination, the author unveils what are the prospects and challenges to the realisation of the RTD in Africa.