Mashood A. Baderin

Towards Effective Collective Security and Human Rights Protection in Africa: An Assessment of the Constitutive Act of the New African Union

At its fifth extraordinary summit held in Sitre, Libya on 2 March 2001, the Assembly of Heads of State and Government (AHSG) of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), representing all the 53 member states, ‘solemnly and proudly’ declared the establishment of the African Union (AU). Following the deposition, by the Federal Republic of Nigeria, of the 36th instrument of ratification with the OAU General Secretariat on 26 April 2001, the Constitutive Act (the Act) of the AU formally came into force on 26 May 2001, in conformity with its Article 28.

Establishing Areas of Common Ground between Islamic Law and International Human Rights

This article re-visits the debate about whether or not Islamic law and international human rights are compatible. It examines and responds to the traditional arguments on the subject from both an international human rights and Islamic legal perspective. It formulates a synthesis between two extremes and argues that although there are some differences, that does not create a general state of dissonance between Islamic law and international human rights. The author argues that the differences would be easier to address if the concept of human rights is first positively established from within the themes of Islamic law rather than imposing it as a concept alien to Islamic law. He thus researches into the sources, jurisprudence and general principles of Islamic law to establish the concept of human rights in common perspective with the concept under international human rights law. The article concludes that through this establishment of common grounds Islamic law could serve as an important vehicle for the realisation of international human rights in the Muslim world.

Towards improving students’ attendance and quality of undergraduate tutorials: a case study on law

As part of continual efforts towards improving learning and teaching in the faculty, lecturers in the law faculty of the University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol debated the question of students’ attendance and quality of tutorials in a recent email discussion amongst themselves. At the end of the debate the need for further research on the subject was highlighted, which initially spurred the research subsequently developed into this journal article. The article explores, through a discursive and comparative analysis of questionnaire responses, how to improve students’ attendance and quality of undergraduate law tutorials. The analysis is equally relevant for other courses in which tutorials are employed as a mode of learning and teaching.

Understanding Islamic Law in Theory and Practice

Professor Mashood Baderin of the School of Oriental and African Studies explains the basic concepts of Islamic law. He discusses its sources, including the distinction between Sharī c ah and Fiqh and its methods and principles. He concludes with a discussion of the various Schools of Islamic jurisprudence.

A Comparative Analysis of the Right to a Fair Trial and Due Process under International Human Rights Law and Saudi Arabian Domestic Law

Abstract This article undertakes a comparative analysis of the right to a fair trial and due process under international human rights law, Islamic law and Saudi Arabian domestic law. It argues that it is important to identify the existence and scope of this right within the domestic law of every state to ensure the protection of other human rights generally. The article examines the scope of this right under Saudi Arabian domestic law in relation to its scope in international human rights law, identifying the possible provisions and means for advocating this right within Saudi Arabian domestic law.

Islamic Law and International Protection of Minority Rights in Context

This chapter endeavores to carefully show that despite its complexity and challenges, the flexibility of Islamic law enables modern Muslim-majority States to be able to arise to the challenges of international protection of minority rights. On the one hand, it has been shown that Islamic law can absolutely facilitate the guarantee and protection of the rights of individuals belonging to ethnic and linguistic minorities without hindrance. On the other hand, while it is acknowledged that there are challenges with the classical Islamic rules on the rights of individuals belonging to religious minorities in relation to standards of modern international minority rights protection, it has nevertheless also been shown that with the right political will, Muslim-majority States can ensure the protection of religious minorities through the contextual understanding of the classical rules and an evolutional perspective of the rules as evidenced by contemporary Islamic jurisprudence in that regard. Keywords:international protection; Islamic law; linguistic minorities; minority rights; Muslim-majority States

Identifying Possible Mechanisms within Islamic Law for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Muslim States

The fact that human rights should be implemented within the domestic legal framework of individual States is trite. Most of the commentaries on international human rights and Islamic law have, however, been substantially theoretical without much focus on the possible means for the realisation of the practical implementation of human rights within the context of Islamic law in Muslim States. While theoretical analyses are very useful for understanding the relationship between human rights and Islamic law, there is equally an important need to identify possible mechanisms within Islamic law for the realisation of the practical implementation of international human rights in the domestic forum of Muslim States that apply Islamic law or aspects of it. This article aims to address that need by identifying and recommending specific procedures for the promotion and protection of human rights to encourage the practical implementation of international human rights in Muslim States.

The 9/11 Attacks and the Future of Collective Security Law: Insight from Islamic Law

An African philosophical adage says: “When children fall they look forwards, but when adults fall they look backwards.”1 The message therein is that a sensible adult will look carefully backward to identify the cause of a fall so as to avoid it and prevent falling again when he/ she passes through that route in future. But a child would inattentively proceed forward without caring to look backward to identify the cause of its fall and will therefore fall again when it passes through that route in future. Borrowing from that philosophy, the starting point of this chapter is that the devastating aftermath of the 2003 United States (U.S.)-led invasion of Iraq places a responsibility on scholars and practitioners of international law to look carefully backward and identify relevant lessons that can be learnt from the Iraqi crisis for the future development of international law generally and Collective Security law particularly. Looking back, the 2003 U.S.-led war on Iraq does raise many legal and moral questions in relation to international law, some of which has been extensively debated by scholars and practitioners of international law.2 With specific regard to Collective Security, Krisch has observed that since 9/11, Collective Security has both “been strengthened in several ways” but “has also been significantly weakened.”3 He argued that this has caused “a rise of Collective Security, as well as its fall, and both simultaneously,”4 which, in essence, has left Collective Security in a sort of quagmire.

Niaz A. Shah, Women, the Koran and International Human Rights Law: The Experience of Pakistan, Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2006

Th e question of gender equality with respect to women’s rights constitutes one of the most important and topical issues in the human rights and Islamic law discourse, particularly in relation to the human rights practices of modern Muslim states. Today, many modern Muslim states have integrated various elements of Islamic law into their domestic laws, which has given rise to ongoing debates about whether women can enjoy equal rights and non-discrimination within the application of Islamic law in modern times. Consequently, there has been a lot of academic literature published in recent years expressing diff erent viewpoints on the subject and proposing diff erent approaches for resolving the areas of tension between the application of Islamic law and the guarantee of women’s rights under human rights law. In my view, this book on Women, the Koran and International Human Rights Law: Th e Experience of Pakistan by Dr. Niaz Shah is a welcome contribution on the subject, especially in respect of its specifi c focus on the experiences of Pakistan as a Muslim state where Islamic law is recognised as part of state law and where the issue of women’s rights has become very topical. Th e author states in the introductory chapter that the study, which was originally submitted as a PhD thesis at the Queen’s University Belfast in 2005, “focuses on the equality rights of women in the Koran1, the statutory Islamic law of Pakistan and compares these with international human rights standards attempting to fi nd a ‘common understanding’ between the two systems” (p. 1). In summary, the book is divided into three main parts. Th e fi rst part is titled “Islamic reforms and the evolution of Islamic law” under which the author examines the position of women in preand post-Islamic Arabia, the equality of men and women in the Koran and the evolution of Islamic law and ijtihad. Th e second part is titled “Women and the legal systems of Pakistan” under which the author examines the role of Islam in the draft ing of the constitution of Pakistan,