This week in law and policy research, ten papers from open-access journals examine succession law, inclusive education, climate obligations, social rights, and firearm policy.
📊 This week at a glance
🌍 African-led research
Retroactive tests for testamentary capacity (whether a person was of sound mind when making a will) undermine individual autonomy and turn will-writing into a system of forced heirship, fuelling unnecessary litigation.
The law’s conception of personhood drives testamentary intention and property, so how personhood is defined matters when unknotting a person’s last will. This comparative analysis of Nigerian and Anglo-Canadian succession law shows that post-mortem capacity contests subvert autonomy. For African scholars, it highlights how imported legal doctrines can clash with local understandings of personhood and property.
Community developers act as crucial intermediaries in citizen-based monitoring (CBM), a mechanism for strengthening public accountability and service delivery in South Africa’s public sector.
Existing scholarship has focused on citizens, civil society organisations, and government institutions, but paid limited attention to the intermediary actors who facilitate monitoring at the community level. This study examines the role of community developers in facilitating CBM. For African scholarship and policy, it points to the need to support these intermediaries to improve accountability and service delivery.
Despite South Africa’s progressive inclusive education policies, Black learners with disabilities in rural provinces remain systematically marginalised from meaningful educational opportunities.
The paper interrogates the entrenched disjuncture between the promises of inclusive education policies and the reality in rural communities. It shows that constitutional and policy frameworks alone have not translated into access for these learners. For African scholarship and policy, it underscores the need to address implementation gaps that leave disabled learners behind.
The 2025 ICJ Advisory Opinion clarifies that States’ climate obligations arise not only from climate treaties but also from broader international law, potentially reshaping South Africa’s second Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC).
The Opinion represents a significant development in international climate law, moving from international obligation to domestic duty. For South Africa, it means the second NDC must be aligned with these clarified obligations. For African scholarship and policy, it provides a legal lever to hold states accountable for climate action.
Socio-economic rights litigation in South Africa has limits in bringing about social change for poor women, and centring their experiences can better address poverty, disadvantage, and vulnerability to violence.
The article focuses on the complex relationship between socio-economic rights litigation and social change in the lives of poor women. It examines the limits of using law to bring about social change. For African scholarship and policy, it argues for centring women’s needs and experiences in legal strategies.
Section 27(1)(c) of South Africa’s Constitution provides a legal framework for justifying a Basic Income Grant (BIG), shifting debate from economic feasibility to constitutional foundations.
Debates on BIG have largely focused on economic feasibility and policy design, with limited attention to constitutional and legal foundations. This article addresses that gap through a qualitative doctrinal analysis. For African scholarship and policy, it reframes the BIG argument around constitutional rights.
🔬 Global breakthroughs
The EU’s DSA Transparency Database, which collects explanations for content moderation decisions, has shortcomings that limit its effectiveness in achieving a safe, predictable, and trusted online environment.
The paper critically assesses the product of one DSA transparency obligation: the DSA Transparency Database (TDB), to which online platforms must submit explanations for most content moderation decisions. It maps shortcomings and levers for improvement. For African scholarship and policy, it offers lessons for transparency and platform regulation in other regions.
Permitless concealed carry laws, adopted by more than 20 US states since 2015, have measurable effects on crime, according to a causal analysis.
Permitless carry laws allow firearm owners to carry a concealed handgun in public without a license or background check. This article estimates the causal impact of these laws on crime using statistical methods. For African scholarship and policy, it provides evidence on the consequences of deregulating firearm carry, relevant to debates on public safety.
Private law should, and to a significant degree already does, abide by the fundamental commitment to reciprocal respect for self-determination and substantive equality, according to Relational Justice.
In Relational Justice, the authors lay out a new approach to understanding society’s most important building blocks. The book reviews push them to clarify and defend their claims. For African scholarship, it offers a framework for rethinking private law’s role in promoting equality and autonomy.
The doctrine of state necessity allows courts to accept otherwise unconstitutional measures as lawful to preserve state institutions or protect significant parts of the legal order, but it is limited and temporary.
This article examines the doctrine of state necessity as a distinct but underexplored doctrine of constitutional law, drawing on case law from a range of jurisdictions. It reconstructs the doctrine as a limited, temporary, and exceptional tool. For African scholarship and policy, it clarifies the boundaries of emergency powers and constitutionalism.
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