This week’s digest covers law, environmental governance, and public policy, with a focus on African scholarship.
📊 This week at a glance
🌍 African-led research
Indigenous Peoples are not a monolithic category; their diverse livelihoods shape how they engage with biodiversity and climate governance.
This paper argues that treating Indigenous Peoples as a single group obscures the varied roles they play, from managing protected areas to negotiating water governance. It changes the assumption that one-size-fits-all policies work for all Indigenous communities. For African scholarship, this means recognizing the specific contexts of Indigenous groups in conservation and climate policy, leading to more effective and equitable governance.
Struggle songs in South Africa are not automatically hate speech; their meaning depends on historical and political context.
This discussion article examines the AfriForum v Malema ruling, where singing ‘Dubul’ ibhunu’ was not deemed hate speech. It challenges the simplistic view that such songs are inherently harmful, emphasizing the need to consider their role in protest and history. For African legal scholarship, this highlights the tension between freedom of expression and hate speech, urging a nuanced approach that respects both.
Religious freedom in cities is shaped by local governance, not just national law.
This article looks at how hyper-diverse Western European cities manage religious diversity, contrasting with European Court of Human Rights case law. It shows that pragmatic city-level policies can better accommodate religious practices. For African urban contexts, this suggests that local governments have a key role in protecting religious freedom, potentially informing more responsive urban planning.
Public employment programmes in South Africa act as ‘support scaffolding’ for livelihoods, not just springboards to jobs.
Drawing on the Presidential Employment Stimulus, which created over 2.5 million opportunities, this paper argues that PEPs strengthen people’s existing livelihood portfolios rather than guarantee permanent employment. This changes the policy expectation from job creation to livelihood support. For African policymakers, it means designing PEPs that complement informal work and provide a safety net in constrained labour markets.
Visually impaired employees in South Africa can identify perpetrators of sexual offences by smell, and courts should admit such evidence.
This paper argues that smell-based identification can be reliable and should be considered in workplace sexual offence cases, addressing a gap in access to justice for visually impaired persons. It challenges the assumption that visual identification is the only valid method. For African legal systems, this could improve justice outcomes for a vulnerable group, aligning with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Environmental rule of law is evolving to address emerging issues like climate change and biodiversity loss, with contributions from academia and civil society.
This Special Issue stems from a symposium in Nairobi, bringing together diverse stakeholders to discuss the Montevideo Environmental Law Programme. It highlights the role of non-state actors in shaping environmental governance. For African scholarship, this underscores the importance of collaborative approaches to environmental challenges, potentially influencing policy and legal frameworks.
South African courts are split on whether parents who completely abandoned their children can inherit from them.
This article compares two cases: Wilsnach v TM and Jacobs v Adams, which reached different conclusions on excluding such parents from intestate succession. It highlights the legal uncertainty and the need for clarity. For African legal practitioners, this points to a potential area for legislative reform to ensure fairness in inheritance law.
🔬 Global breakthroughs
The concept of ‘care’ in law is not fragmented but has a unified meaning across tort, medical, and family law.
This paper challenges the assumption that ‘care’ means different things in different legal contexts, arguing for a consolidated analysis. It could simplify legal reasoning and improve consistency. For African legal scholars, this offers a framework to understand care obligations across jurisdictions, potentially informing more coherent legal principles.
Evidence from ultraprocessed food trials is often overinterpreted, with claims exceeding what the data support.
This perspective reviews four trials comparing ultraprocessed diets to minimally processed ones, finding that the results are not as definitive as presented. It cautions against drawing strong causal conclusions. For African nutrition policy, this means being cautious about adopting restrictive recommendations based on limited evidence, and instead focusing on broader dietary patterns.
AI systems in criminal proceedings challenge the traditional notion of evidentiary authority, affecting the right to a fair trial.
This article introduces the concept of ‘evidentiary authority’—the power to determine what counts as reliable evidence—and argues that AI shifts this power away from human actors. It raises concerns about the ability to challenge AI-generated evidence. For African legal systems, this highlights the need to develop rules for AI use in courts to protect defendants’ rights.
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