Title: Consolidating an integrated rights approach: socio-economic constitutional justice in Africa

Authors: Peter A. Atupare

Addresses: School of Law, University of Ghana, P.O. Box LG 70, Legon, Accra, Ghana

Abstract: This paper makes the claim that constitutional positivism rejection of both the judicial incorporation of international human rights norms and the relevance of unenumerated-rights provisions poses a challenge to the conception of law as a moral ideal. It also strangles the possibility of a comprehensive rights regime for legal systems in developing countries like Ghana and Nigeria. It reduces to the periphery a conception of law as an aspirational moral ideal for society. By retaining the positivist approach in this increasingly globalised world, the result will be not only to obfuscate a holistic understanding of constitutions, but also to risk the violation of major international human rights norms that are part of the post-war global human rights constituency. This would deepen the plight of the vulnerable and create a dominant legal discourse that will reduce socio-economic rights to mere non-justiciable public policies in Ghana and Nigeria.

Keywords: human rights; socio-economic rights; directive principles; state policy; international human rights norms; unity of rights; justicibility; legality; conscience of constitution; unenumerated rights; Africa.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPLAP.2023.134276

International Journal of Public Law and Policy, 2023 Vol.9 No.4, pp.385 - 417

Received: 08 Feb 2022
Accepted: 28 Jun 2022
Published online: 17 Oct 2023 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article