Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADM)
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Item Special prosecutor: Panacea or facade to institutionalized corruption in Ghana?(Cogent Social Sciences, 2022) Amankwah, M.O.; Arthur, R.; Anku-Tsede, O.: Motivated by the systematic nature of corruption and effect on the nation’s potential, this study sought to assess how the establishment of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) aids in its fight. Further, it comparatively analyses this agency vis-à-vis other agencies with a similar mandate to determine whether the role of the special prosecutor makes any impact in fighting this cancer. Data was collected through interviews from professionals in the law fraternity and analysed using content analysis. Findings are that the OSP is indeed an independent prosecutor who could be regarded as free from the influence of the executive with no conflict of interest in carrying out its mandate. Further, the study found that there was dissatisfaction with the performance of the OSP due to its inability to prosecute enough high-profile cases. However, due to the commitment and track record of the OSP, many expressed confidence in his person to help wrestle corruption. Many, however, were of the view that there were overlapping and con flicting functions between the OSP and other state anti-corruption agencies. Unfortunately, the office is saddled with many challenges inhibiting the performance of its mandate, thereby questioning whether it is a panacea or facade to institutionalized corruption in GhanaItem The composite theory : an African contribution to the academic freedom discourse(Sabinet, 2015-01) Appiagyei-Atua, K.; Beiter, K.D.; Karran, T.This article expounds the Composite Theory to define the parameters for the exercise of academic freedom in Africa, informed by its political, historical and cultural circumstances and expressed in the Dar es Salaam Declaration on Academic Freedom and Social Responsibility of Academics and the Kampala Declaration on Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibility. This approach follows in the line of the Special Theory and General Theory postulated to justify the exercise and application of academic freedom in Germany and the United States of America, respectively. The Composite Theory contends that academic freedom in the African context should not only be seen in the narrow prism of protecting the rights of academics on and off the university campus. It includes a commitment to recognise and contribute to promoting the rights of other key actors in the academic freedom equation, to wit, students and the society as a fulfilment of the academic's social responsibility. This role can be fulfilled both within and outside the university campus. Internally, academics shall respect students' right to academic freedom and immerse knowledge-sharing in a democratic ethos. This approach will likely instil in the students respect for democracy, human rights and the rule of law, which they will carry away with them from the university into life within the society. Extramurally, equipped with their knowledge, skills and experience, African academics should take advantage of their privileged positions in society to leave their ivory towers and, where necessary, solidarise with other civil society actors to promote social transformation and human emancipation. This is the guaranteed way to protect academic freedom on the campuses.Item The Capture of Institutional Autonomy by the Political Elite and Its Impact on Academic Freedom in African Universities(ERIC, 2015) Appiagyei-Atua, K.; Beiter, K.D.; Karran, T.Although the cradle of university education is traced to Africa, modern university education in Africa emanated from European systems which set the tone for their replication on the continent through colonialism. For ideological and other reasons, African universities were subjected to significant violations of their institutional autonomy after independence, which trickled down to affect academics and students alike and thereby violated academic freedom generally. One major area where the abuses centred was the appointment of political leaders to occupy the high echelons of university management and to run the universities as political organs of the one-party systems in vogue at the time. Discussion of this subject has mainly centred on critiquing the excesses of immediate post-colonial governments, sometimes with no linkage to academic freedom. Where academic freedom is introduced into the discourse, the key components of the concept of academic freedom are not clearly delineated and discussed in a manner that links one component to the other. This paper aims to fill this gap. It does so by developing a theoretical framework for academic freedom which is used to analyse and categorise violations of academic freedom under its five pillars--institutional autonomy, self-governance, tenure, individual rights and freedoms for academics, and individual rights and freedoms for students. The paper also examines the factors responsible for the violations of academic freedom and their impact on the evolution of higher education in Africa.Item Ethical Dimensions of Third-World Approaches to International Law (twail): A Critical Review(BRILL, 2015-04-29) Appiagyei-Atua, K.Third-World Approaches to International Law (twail) represents an intellectual movement devoted to exposing the injustices, imbalances and contradictions inherent in international law that work against the interests of the Third World, especially Africa. As a deconstructive tool, it seeks to question the assumptions and claims of neutrality, fairness and orderliness that law is supposed to embody and thereby decentre the garb of coloniality, hegemony, eurocentricity and universality that defines and dictates the discourse and praxis of international law, especially international economic law. As a reconstructive tool, twail has the underlying commitment of developing and embedding the democratic ethos and norms that should regulate relations within and between the so-called developing and developed worlds and thus provide a new way of understanding and practising international law. TWAILism therefore represents an attempt to promote and inject an ethical dimension into international law that will ensure a fair playing field for all actors. However, placing the discourse of TWAILism within a global ethics context for analysis has not been the direct concern and focus of TWAILers. The contribution of this article, therefore, is to immerse the discourse of TWAILism into a global ethics matrix with the goal of measuring the extent to which its substantive elements, goals and ambitions match up to a well-founded standards of global ethics; and to fill in the gaps by proposing a theory. The theory of community emancipation seeks to support the need for a global distributive justice approach to addressing the inequities and injustices plaguing the international order.Item Academic Freedom and Its Protection in the Law of European States(BRILL NIJHOFF, 2016) Appiagyei-Atua, K.; Beiter, K.D.; Karran, T.Focusing on those countries that are members of the European Union, it may be noted that these countries are bound under international human rights agreements, such as the International Covenants on Civil and Political, and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights or the European Convention on Human Rights, to safeguard academic freedom under provisions providing for the right to freedom of expression, the right to education, and respect for ‘the freedom indispensable for scientific research.’ unesco’s Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel, a ‘soft-law’ document of 1997, concretises international human rights requirements to be complied with to make the protection of the right to academic freedom effective. Relying on a set of human rights indicators, the present article assesses the extent to which the constitutions, laws on higher education, and other relevant legislation of eu states implement the Recommendation’s criteria. The situation of academic freedom in practice will not be assessed here. The results for the various countries have been quantified and countries ranked in accordance with ‘their performance.’ The assessment demonstrates that, overall, the state of the protection of the right to academic freedom in the law of European states is one of ‘ill-health.’ Institutional autonomy is being misconstrued as exhausting the concept of academic freedom, self-governance in higher education institutions sacrificed for ‘executive-style’ management, and employment security abrogated to cater for ‘changing employment needs’ in higher education.Item “Measuring” the Erosion of Academic Freedom as an International Human Right: A Report on the Legal Protection of Academic Freedom in Europe(VANDERBILT JOURNAL OF TRANSNATIONAL LAW, 2016-03-22) Appiagyei-Atua, K.; Karran, T.; Beiter, K.D.This Article reports and comments on the results of an assessment of the legal protection of the right to academic freedom (an examination of its factual protection to be undertaken at a future point) in EU member states, having examined these countries’ constitutions, laws on higher education, and other relevant legislation. The assessment relied on a standard scorecard, developed by utilizing indicators of protection of academic freedom, notably as reflected in UNESCO’s Recommendation concerning the Status of HigherEducation Teaching Personnel, a document of 1997 that is not legally, but “politically” binding, and which concretizes international human rights requirements in respect of academic freedom—a right under international human rights law. The results for the various countries have been quantified, and the countries have been ranked in accordance with “their performance.” Overall, the state of the legal protection of the right to academic freedom in Europe appears to be one of “illhealth.” Increasingly, European countries are merely paying lip service to this important right. While the concept of institutional autonomy is being misconstrued, self-governance in higher education institutions and employment security are being subjected to rigorous processes of erosion.Item Retrogression in the Legal Protection of the Right to Academic Freedom in Europe.(Researchgate, 2016-10) Appiagyei-Atua, K.; Beiter, K.; Karran, T.This article is a condensed and reworked version of: "Measuring" the Erosion of Academic Freedom as an International Human Right: A Report on the Legal Protection of Academic Freedom in Europe (Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, Vol. 49, 2016, 597-691), making the research results available to an audience versed in the higher education sciences. The article assesses to what extent the right to academic freedom as construed in terms of international human rights law, specifically UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel of 1997, is protected in the law of the 28 Member States of the European Union. It determines the elements of this right, to then operationalise these by way of indicators accorded numeric values in order to assess state compliance and rank states in terms of their performance. The article shows that there is retrogression in Europe insofar as the legal protection of the right to academic freedom is concerned. Institutional autonomy is being misconstrued, academic self-governance denied and job security eroded. These developments appear to be the result of deliberate policy decisions by EU Member States seeking to make higher education “the arm of national economic policy,” so as to ensure higher education will contribute to national GDP.Item A review of academic freedom in Africa through the Prism of the UNESCO's 1997 Recommendation(CODESRIA, 2016) Appiagyei-Atua, K.; Beiter, K.; Karran, T.An assessment of the level of compliance of the UNESCO Recommendation in Europe, Australia, USA and other jurisdictions indicates that the document has been honoured more in its breach than in its observance. Having returned to an ethos of a democratic culture and a refinement of the role of the university in the globalization era, it is time for Africa also to be assessed on the level of compliance with the UNESCO Recommendation. This assessment is done based on four indicators identified in the UNESCO Recommendation: institutional autonomy, institutional governance, individual rights and freedoms, and tenure. The conclusion reached is that academic freedom has indeed found its way back into African universities after its complete roll-back during the post-independence era. However, the university reforms undertaken in the globalization era in many African universities have undermined greater respect for academic freedom and made hollow the gains made in the respect of freedom in this eraItem Managing trade liberalization: Legal system deficiencies and the political economy of contingency protection in Ghana(Journal of African Law, 2004-10) Ayine, D.M.This article proposes to critically examine how effectively Ghana has managed pressures by domestic import-competing industries and unionized labour for protection since the country engaged in radical and far-reaching trade liberalization under World Bank and IMF auspices. It argues that the heavy influence of public choice theory on the conception of regulatory role of government in the economy held by these principal architects of Ghana's trade reforms has resulted in the omission to provide for contingency protection measures for domestic industries adversely impacted by imports as a consequence of liberalization. Though these measures pose a counternormative threat to free trade, the article takes the position that they are necessary tools for the effective management of protectionist pressures and therefore for sustaining free trade itself. Finally, it concludes that the uncritical application of choice theoretic analyses to Ghana's trade reforms may be mistaken and that there is no rational alternative to dealing with the problem of protectionist pressure other than a resort to the legitimate mechanism provided under international law.Item Patenting of pharmaceuticals and development in sub-saharan Africa: Laws, institutions, practices, and politics(Patenting of Pharmaceuticals and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Laws, Institutions, Practices, and Politics, 2013) Adusei, P.This book critically investigates the patent protection of medication in light of the threats posed by HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis epidemics to the citizens of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (hereinafter "SSA" or "Africa"). The book outlines the systemic problems associated with the prevailing globalized patent regime and the regime's inability to promote access to life-saving medication at affordable prices in SSA. It argues that for pharmaceutical patents to retain their relevance in SSA countries, human development concepts must be integrated into global patent law- and policy-making. An integrative approach implies developing additional public health and human development exceptions/limitations to the exercise of patent rights with the goal of scaling up access to medication that can treat epidemics in SSA. By drawing on multiple perspectives of laws, institutions, practices, and politics, the book suggests that SSA countries adopt an evidence-based approach to implementing global patent standards in domestic jurisdictions. This evidence-based approach would include mechanisms like local need assessments and the use of empirical data to shape domestic patent law-making endeavors. The approach also implies revising patent rules and policies with a pro-poor and pro-health emphasis, so that medication will be more affordable and accessible to the citizens of SSA countries. It also suggests considering the opinions of individuals and pro-access institutions in enacting crucial pieces of health-related statutes in SSA countries. The approach in this book is sensitive to the public health needs of the citizens affected by epidemics and to the imperative of building local manufacturing facilities for pharmaceutical research and development in SSA. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013. All rights are reserved.