Turf Law Journal

Children’s rights and the pursuit of intergenerational climate justice in Nigeria

Grace Arowolo — 2024-10-15

Climate change is a major issue in environmental law. It is also an inherently intergenerational problem, with extremely serious implications for equity (justice) between present and future generations and among communities in the present and the future. Africa is one of the regions of the world most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change owing to its high exposure and poor adaptive capacity. The scourge of climate change in Africa is hitting the most vulnerable hardest, and contributing to food insecurity, population displacement and stress on water resources. The 2021 report of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) confirms that African children are most at risk of climate change. The report ranked Nigeria second among the countries classified as extremely high-risk countries where children are most at risk of climate change, together with Chad, and after the Central African Republic, which ranked first. Nigerian children are found to be highly exposed to air pollution and coastal floods, which adversely affect their rights to life, survival and development, health and education, thus amplifying existing inequalities. Consequently, there is a need to invest in the services that children depend on to survive. This article examines the impact of climate change on the rights of children in Nigeria and proposes measures for intergenerational climate justice. It recommends, inter alia, the adoption of a children’s rights-based approach to climate change mitigation and adaptation and integrating children’s rights into Nigerian climate change responses.

The constitutional protection of the right to collective job action in Zimbabwe: a comparative analysis

Noah Maringe — 2024-10-15

The right to participate in collective job action is the most formidable weapon in employees’ arsenal, without which workers’ autonomy and democracy in the workplace would be under persistent onslaught. This article assesses whether Zimbabwe’s constitutional protection of collective job action accords with general trends in comparative jurisdictions such as South Africa, Kenya and Australia. Further, the article establishes that Zimbabwe’s 2013 Constitution is progressive on the right to collective job action. However, it fails to offer adequate constitutional protections and guarantees for the right. There are also several disconnects between the Constitution and the Labour Act. Additionally, Zimbabwe’s legal and institutional framework is lagging behind when compared to other jurisdictions from which lessons can be drawn. The article makes constitutional, legislative, institutional and administrative recommendations with a view to enhancing the protection, enforcement and promotion of the right to collective job action in Zimbabwe.

The doctrine of substantive legitimate expectation: a missing piece of the puzzle in modern South African administrative law

Vuyo Peach — 2024-10-15

The doctrine of legitimate expectation is well-established in South African administrative law. The doctrine has two pillars: a procedural legitimate expectation focuses on the procedure that a public authority follows before deciding, and a substantive legitimate expectation focuses on the actual decision that a public authority makes. There is a paralysis within the judiciary when it comes to reflecting seriously upon whether substantive legitimate expectations should form part of South African law, perhaps influenced to some degree by judicial restraint. Against the backdrop of Administrator Transvaal v Traub 1989 (4) SA 731 (A), Meyer v Iscor Pension Fund 2003 (2) SA 715 (SCA) and obiter comments in Bel Porto School Governing Body v Premier, Western Cape 2002 (3) SA 265 (CC), the article takes transformative constitutionalism as its point of departure in advocating for the incorporation of substantive legitimate expectation into the evolving corpus of administrative law. This development is long overdue. The article discusses values such as constitutional supremacy, the rule of law, fairness, the separation of powers and administrative justice, and the institutions that support these values.