Michael Gyan Nyarko

📢📝Register Now! The Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa is convening a side event on the margins of the #87th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (@achpr_cadhp ) to launch its new publication on regional insights and best practices on implementation in #Africa. 📅 13 May 2026 | 🕰 AM -12:30 PM GMT | 📍Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Center, Gambia🇬🇲 This event will not only showcase the collective insights and best practices generated through the national and regional dialogues, but will also foster engagement among States, NHRIs, civil society organisations, and regional mechanisms. 🔗Registration link: lnkd.in/d3Nu5Es2

Call for Applications | LLM in Multidisciplinary Human Rights (MDHR) Are you passionate about human rights, social justice and transformative change? The @CHR_HumanRights , Faculty of Law, @UPTuks invites invites applications for its specialised LLM in Multidisciplinary Human Rights programme. This interdisciplinary postgraduate programme equips students with the academic and practical knowledge needed to address complex human rights challenges across Africa and beyond. Through a multidisciplinary approach, students engage with the intersection of human rights and various other disciplines while gaining hands on experience in applying human rights principles to real-world social issues. Eligibility: • Open to individuals with an LLB degree or equivalent • Open to non-lawyers with at least an Honours degree • In exceptional cases, applicants with a Bachelor’s degree and relevant human rights work experience may be considered Application deadlines: • 31 August 2026 – International students • 30 September 2026 – South African students • Programme duration: January 2027 – December 2028 Applicants with a deep interest in human rights and social justice are especially encouraged to apply. Join a dynamic postgraduate programme shaping the next generation of human rights professionals and changemakers in Africa and beyond. Apply now: chr.up.ac.za/mdhr

Today, @IHRDAfrica joined fellow stakeholders at the Sir Dawida Kairaba Jawara International Conference Centre, Banjul, in Gambia for a Sensitisation Mission by the ECOWAS Court of Justice, aiming to raise awareness about the Court’s mandate, jurisdiction, procedures, and accessibility. The Community Court of Justice Sensitization Mission seeks to encourage individuals and organisations to take advantage of its processes, particularly in seeking redress on issues relating to human rights violations. Over the years, the Court as delivered landmark judgments that have shaped human rights jurisprudence in the region, reinforcing accountability among member states and offering citizens an alternative avenue for justice beyond domestic courts. At the @IHRDAfrica , we have been supporting access to justice by uploading and disseminating the Court’s decisions through our African Human Rights Case Law Analyzer: caselaw.ihrda.org

Call for Applications | LLM in Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Africa (SRRA) Ready to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights across the continent? The @CHR_HumanRights , Faculty of Law, @UPTuks invites applications for its specialised LLM in Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Africa Masters programme. This two-year blended programme combines online learning with residential block weeks in Pretoria, equipping professionals with the legal expertise and practical skills to drive impactful change. Eligibility: • A degree allowing access to the legal profession • At least a 4-year honours degree in a relevant academic discipline; or another qualification that allows admission to a master’s programme in a related field • Excellent academic credentials and demonstrated human rights experience or interest. Applications close: 31 July 2026 Programme duration: January 2027 – December 2028 Open to candidates across Africa with up to 15 full scholarships available Take the next step in your human rights journey and join a network committed to advancing dignity, equality, and access to sexual and reproductive health and rights across Africa. Women, as well as members of minority groups such as indigenous people, LGBTI persons and persons with disabilities, are particularly encouraged to apply. Apply now: chr.up.ac.za/srra

Call for Applications | LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa (HRDA) Ready to shape the future of human rights on the continent? The Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria invites applications for its prestigious LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa. Delivered in partnership with leading African universities, this programme equips the next generation of human rights leaders with the knowledge, skills, and continental perspective to drive meaningful change. Eligibility: • A degree allowing access to the legal profession • An Honours degree in a discipline relevant to human rights and democratisation • Excellent academic credentials and demonstrated human rights experience or interest Applications close: 31 July 2026 Programme duration: January – December 2027 Open to candidates across Africa — with full scholarships available Take the next step in your human rights journey and join a network committed to advancing justice, democracy, and equality across Africa. Women, as well as members of minority groups such as indigenous people, LGBTI persons and persons with disabilities, are particularly encouraged to apply. Apply now: chr.up.ac.za/hrda

"Beyond discrimination, children with albinism across Africa continue to face serious threats to their safety and lives. More than 800 reported attacks against persons with albinism have been documented, including killings, mutilations, abductions, and trafficking." #ACERWC47

🧵1/2: In Kabwe, #Zambia, decades of lead and zinc mining have left behind vast quantities of toxic waste which continues to contaminate surrounding soil and water sources. Reports indicate that more than 95 percent of children living near the former mine in Kabwe have elevated

At #ACERWC47, we highlighted urgent child rights issues: toxic mining, statelessness & exclusion of children with disabilities. Stronger accountability & implementation are needed now. 📄 Full statement: ihrda.org/2026/04/statem… #ChildRights #HumanRights

Panel: Protecting Children from Toxic Mining Environments Kabwe is not an isolated case — across Africa, children are exposed to toxic pollution from mining. Join the conversation. Demand accountability. Protect children’s rights. Join us virtually on Zoom. Pre-registration required: us06web.zoom.us/meeting/regist… Watch the live stream: youtube.com/live/STX-tSi46… @justrutz @hrw @KippenbergJ @LeadFreeKabwe

🔴 Happening now at #CSOForum Maseru @likemike0077 Michael Gyan Nyarko joins a panel on litigation & implementation of #ACERWC jurisprudence. Only 28 cases in 20+ years—despite widespread violations affecting children across Africa. We need more litigation. More support. More implementation. #ChildRights

Hundreds of millions of people throughout the world are immersed in extreme poverty. Yet, disproportionate wealth remains in the hands of a few. It is an unjust scenario, in the face of which we cannot fail to question ourselves and commit to change things. There is no lack of resources at the root of disparities, but the need to address solvable problems related to a more equitable distribution of wealth, to be achieved with moral sense and honesty.

Children’s rights are fundamental to Africa’s future. The @CHR_HumanRights, @UPTuks, in partnership with the @UPChildLaw and the @UWC_DOI Institute for Constitutional Law, Governance and Human Rights, will host a one-week short course on Children’s Rights in Africa. It will take place from 22–26 June 2026, in a hybrid format online via Zoom and in-person at the University of Pretoria. This course will equip professionals working with children with practical knowledge and skills to strengthen the protection and promotion of children’s rights across the continent. The closing date is 17 April 2026. Apply here: chr.up.ac.za/cours.../child…

My book has now been published by the Pretoria University Law Press, a day before my 34th birthday, and four years after I graduated from the University of Pretoria with my doctorate in comparative constitutional law. This book offers lawyers and (legal/constitutional) comparatists comparative insights into the way three (key) constitutional courts enhance the quality of human rights protection through interpretation. This birthday gift is open access (pulp.up.ac.za/catalogue/mono…). Download your copy and let’s engage (if you need to receive a printed copy for, say, your university library, do let me know).

Letter to my dear Bongo Brother! 1. This letter is addressed to my brother Manasseh Azure Awuni (@Manasseh_Azure). But in truth it is intended to be read by all interested in the conversations evoked by his recent writings. 2. Precisely because of that wider target audience, I apologize in advance. For my writing will be a little dense and perhaps too academic for how I usually write on social media. 3. For all who follow me; you know that I try to separate my academic work from how I engage here because I want to carry along the most amount of people when I write. Many say they appreciate how I make law accessible. 4. But issues at hand beget their own manner of responding. The issues are at once academic and dense, so forgive. 5. Manasseh is correct. Correct in that African merchant involvement as middlemen in this barbaric enterprise must be catalogued and be part of the broader reparations conversation. 6. Now in having that conversation we must do so to educate and enlighten so we can better acknowledge how we too repair. YES ! WE TOO MUST REPAIR! 7. My worry however, is that we must be careful that we do not tether too closely to the ever regressive argument which holds that the participation of African merchants and polities in the transatlantic slave trade somehow negates or dilutes the moral and legal case for holistic repair. 8. Still, this line of reasoning which many find in your writing, deserves serious engagement, because it touches on genuine historical complexity. Yet, I find that it ultimately rests on a conflation of complicity with causation; or worse, it conflates moral imperfection with an imposed forfeiture of justice. 8. Now, let us be precise about what the historical record shows. Yes, African rulers, merchants, and intermediaries participated in the capture and sale of enslaved persons. 9. This is neither new scholarship nor a suppressed truth. It has been extensively documented by historians from Walter Rodney to Toyin Falola. The question is not whether this happened. The question here is what follows from it, legally and morally. 10. This is what I feel you address inelegantly, if at all! 11. Consider an instructive parallel. During the Holocaust, some Jews run the Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst, Jewish police units in the ghettos tasked with maintaining order and, in some cases, facilitating deportations to extermination camps. 12. The moral anguish of that role has been the subject of profound reflection, from Hannah Arendt’s controversial treatment of the Judenräte to more recent and more sympathetic scholarship recognising the impossible conditions under which these individuals operated. And yet no serious person has ever suggested that the existence of the Ordnungsdienst undermines the case for Holocaust reparations, restitution, or even the basic moral claim that what was done to the Jewish people constituted an unparalleled crime. 13. The reason is straightforward: the system was not designed, or imposed, by its victims, even where some among the victimised were drawn into its machinery as key players. 14. The same structural logic applies to the transatlantic trade. The system of racialised chattel slavery that defined the Atlantic world from the sixteenth century onward was conceived, financed, legislated, and enforced by European powers and their colonial successors. 15. The legal architecture of the Code Noir, the Slave Codes of the British Caribbean and the American South, the asientos, the joint-stock companies chartered by European crowns: none of this originated in Africa. African participation occurred within a system whose terms, prices, destinations, and ultimate purposes were determined by external demand. 16. To put it bluntly, treating the middleman as the architect is to confuse a distorted market response with the market’s creation.

HISTORY MADE AT THE UNITED NATIONS The United Nations General Assembly has adopted resolution A/80/L.48, declaring the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement as the Gravest Crime against Humanity. Standing on the Right Side of History

Some initiatives begin quietly in research rooms and conversations among scholars, but their impact reaches far beyond academia. The @CHR_HumanRights, @UPTuks, invites you to the academic launch of a new global research resource developed in collaboration with HURIDOCS. It will take place on 22 April 2026 at 16:00 (SAST) in a hybrid format. Join us as we introduce this initiative to the academic community and open the door to global collaboration and contribution.

Today we marked Human Rights Day in South Africa, a moment to reflect on the struggles that shaped our freedom and the responsibility we share to protect it. This year is especially meaningful for the @CHR_HumanRights, @UPTuks as we celebrate 40 years of advancing human rights in Africa. Founded in 1986, during a time when human rights were deeply contested in South Africa, the Centre was established to promote human dignity, justice, and democratic values through education, research, and advocacy. Over four decades, we have grown into a leading institution shaping human rights discourse and training generations of advocates across the continent. As we commemorate the day, we also celebrate 40 years of commitment to building a more just and equal Africa, and the many voices, scholars, and defenders who continue this work every day.

SEXUAL ASSAULT ON WOMEN AT OZORO FESTIVAL IS A NATIONAL DISGRACE A society reveals its true character in how it treats its women. Where women are chased, stripped, groped, violated, and publicly humiliated by mobs under the guise of celebration, what is on display is not culture. It is barbarity. It is a collapse of conscience. It is a stain on our shared humanity. The deeply disturbing reports emerging from a recent festival in Ozoro, Delta State are not just troubling, they are horrifying. Women were allegedly accosted in broad daylight, forcefully stripped of their clothing, sexually assaulted, and subjected to degrading treatment by groups of young men while others watched, recorded, and, in some instances, cheered. No woman should ever have to endure such terror, such exposure, such violation of her dignity. This was not a festival. This was lawlessness. This was gender-based violence in its most primitive and shameful form. These acts amount to a grave violation of the fundamental rights to dignity of the human person, personal liberty, and security as guaranteed under the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), as well as other international human rights instruments. They also constitute serious criminal offences under our laws, including assault, sexual violence, and public indecency. The NBA condemns these acts in the strongest possible terms. No tradition, no custom, no so-called cultural practice can excuse or legitimise the degradation and violation of women. Any practice that permits such cruelty is not culture. It is criminality. We call on the Delta State Government and all relevant law enforcement agencies to act swiftly and decisively. The perpetrators must be identified, arrested, and prosecuted. Those who aided, enabled, or failed to intervene must also be held accountable. Justice must not be delayed, and it must not be selective. Silence, indifference, or excuses in the face of such brutality only embolden further abuse. We further call on community leaders, traditional institutions, and festival organisers to take urgent responsibility. Cultural celebrations must never become theatres of violence. They must reflect dignity, order, and respect for human life, not chaos and cruelty. The protection of women is not optional. It is a legal duty. It is a moral obligation. It is a test of who we are as a people. Nigeria must not become a place where women live in fear of being stripped of both their clothing and their dignity in public spaces. This must never happen again! Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN President, Nigerian Bar Association Huwaila Muhammad Chairperson, NBA Women Forum

The next generation of African women leaders in agricultural science starts here. Women scientists in 🇬🇭, 🇸🇳 & 🇸🇱, can apply for the 24-month Women in Agriculture Leadership Program Fellowship to gain skills in: ✅ Leadership & negotiation 1/2

Internet shutdowns actively undermine citizen participation and erode public trust! Authorities in the Republic of Congo must #KeepItOn