Journal SubmissionTYD FundNewslettersCape Town ResolutionProjectsOlu Akinkugbe FellowshipPublications

Latest Book Publications!!!

To order Dr Yakubu Nagu's book from Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, please click here. 

To order Dr Inebu C. Agbo-Ejeh's book from Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, please click here.

To order Dr Julieth Gudo's book from Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, please click here.

To order Dr Ogochukwu Monye's book from Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, please click here.

To order Dr Victor Amadi's book from Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, please click here.

To order Dr Oyeniyi Abe's book from Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, please click here.

To order Dr Augustine Arimoro's book from Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, please click here.

To order Dr Nojeem Amodu's book from Taylor & Francis Group, please click here.

To access a copy of Professor Faizel Ismail's book from TIPS please click here.

To order a copy of the book from Oxford University Press, please click here.

CCLA researchers attend the ICON Conference 2026, University College Dublin, Ireland

Dublin greeted its visitors in characteristic fashion, wet underfoot and unmistakably green, as University College Dublin hosted the 12th Annual Conference of the International Society for Public Law (ICON•S) from 29 June to 1 July 2026, convened under the theme "Reimagining Public Law for a Fractured World: Technology, Identity and Truth." The ICON annual meeting is the largest gathering of public law scholars in the world, assembled by the discipline's largest learned society, and the 2026 edition drew more than two thousand academics, judges, students and practitioners to Belfield, Dublin, across several hundred parallel sessions, making it the largest public law conference ever held in Ireland.

The Centre for Comparative Law in Africa (CCLA) convened a panel titled "Public Law under Strain: Regional Integration, Accountability, and Platform Governance in Africa," listed on the programme as Panel 4.07 and held on the afternoon of Monday, 29 June. The panel brought together three CCLA postdoctoral research fellows at the University of Cape Town (Dr Yakubu Nagu, Dr Julieth Gudo and Dr Victor Amadi) alongside Mr Charles Adekunle, a legal practitioner qualified in Nigeria and in England and Wales and an artificial intelligence governance specialist based in Dublin. Three panellists presented in person at the Sutherland School of Law, with Dr Amadi joining online.

The session examined the African Continental Free Trade Area and the reconfiguration of public law across the continent, human mobility before regional courts, generative artificial intelligence governance in African jurisdictions, and civil society accountability. Altogether, the presentations considered how African public law is responding to regional economic ordering, cross-border movement, rapid technological change, and sustained demands for institutional answerability. The panel drew an engaged audience that returned repeatedly to questions of enforcement and of who bears the cost when regional commitments go unmet.

The conference programme ran across three days, opening with a welcome ceremony on the evening of 29 June at which Stanford's Professor E. Tendayi Achiume delivered the keynote address, and continuing through Tuesday and Wednesday with panels spanning constitutionalism, governance, rights, accountability, electoral law, and algorithmic regulation. Proceedings closed on the afternoon of 1 July at the Sutherland School of Law, where it was announced that the next ICON Annual Conference will be held in Taiwan.

The panel records its appreciation to the ICON Secretariat, the UCD Centre for Constitutional Studies, the Centre for Comparative Law in Africa, and the University of Cape Town, and to University College Dublin for hosting another well-organized and generously attended conference.

Writing Retreat Advances Research on Equality Law in Africa

 From 19 to 25 July 2026, Dr Raisa Nyirongo took part in a writing retreat at the Wits Rural Facility, convened as part of a book project on Equality Law in Africa hosted by the South African Chair for Equality, Law and Social Justice. The week offered an intensive setting for advancing the project, combining uninterrupted writing time with peer review and scholarly exchange. 

Participants held individual consultations with leading scholars in the field, who provided feedback on draft chapters. Sessions on career development and academic publishing addressed the practical questions facing early career researchers navigating the publication process. Dr Nyirongo's chapter examines the role of regional judicial mechanisms in advancing substantive equality in Africa. It considers how regional courts and comparable bodies can address structural inequalities and strengthen the protection of equality rights across the continent.

CCLA Triple Book Launch

The Centre for Comparative Law in Africa hosted an online Triple Book Launch on Tuesday, 16 December 2025, celebrating three publications in corporate governance, trade, and civil society. The session drew more than thirty attendees from academic, professional and policy backgrounds across Africa and beyond. 

The event featured Dr Julieth Gudo and Dr Christiana Agbo-Ejeh, together with Professor Fatima Osman, who presented on behalf of Dr Adenike Aiyedun of blessed memory. Professor Ada Ordor, Dr Victor Amadi and Mr Chebo Tamajong-Nfor facilitated the session, guiding the discussion and audience engagement across the three presentations.

CCLA Keynote Address at the 4th SADC Law Conference

CCLA Director Professor Ada Ordor delivered the keynote address at the 4th SADC Law Conference, held at the University of the Western Cape on 8 and 9 May 2025 under the theme Reflecting on the Current State of Regional Integration in Africa's sub-regions: Comparative Perspectives from the EAC, ECOWAS, SADC. Her paper was titled African Integration: The Coming of Age of a Movement. 

CCLA postdoctoral researcher Dr Raisa Nyirongo presented a paper titled Striking a Balance: Enforcement vs Regional Cohesion in African Integration, Lessons from ECOWAS, SADC and EAC, examining the tension between compliance mechanisms and political cohesion in the sub-regional bodies. The conference was established by Professor Moses Retselisitsoe Phooko and Dr Mkhululi Nyathi of the University of the Witwatersrand. It was convened as a collaboration between the Oliver Tambo Chair in Human Rights at the University of Fort Hare, the African Centre for Transnational Criminal Justice at UWC, the National University of Lesotho, King Ceasor University in Kampala, and the University of Lay Adventists of Kigali.

CCLA researchers attend the ICON Conference 2025, University of Brasilia, Brazil

As Brasília settled into its dry winter season, with bright skies suspended over its open boulevards, the city became a fitting canvas for the International Society for Public Law (ICON•S) Annual Conference 2025, held under the evocative theme “At the Crossroads of Public Law: Equality, Climate Emergency, and Democracy in the Digital Era” 

The Centre for Comparative Law in Africa (CCLA) co-convened a panel titled “Africa at the Intersection of Public Law: Regionalism, Gender, and Digital Transformation.” The panel was comprised of three CCLA postdoctoral researchers (Dr Yakubu Nagu, Dr Raisa Nyirongo, Dr Victor Amadi), and doctoral candidate Mr Chebo Tamajong-Nfor, as well as Dr Ghati Nyehita (postdoctoral researcher at the SARChI Chair IP, UCT), Dr Tebogo Lefifi (Nelson Mandela School, UCT), and Dr Albert Puja (University of the Western Cape). Countries represented on the panel include Cameroon, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, and South Africa.

In an engaging session, the panel explored critical themes around gendered stakeholder engagement in AfCFTA implementation, compliance in regional integration, intellectual property and climate justice, fintech and digital trade regulation, as well as legal frameworks for climate-induced migration. 

The conference held over a period of four days with a combination of plenaries and over one hundred panel sessions.  The team found it a professionally rewarding and affirming experience, enhanced by the warm weather, an atmosphere of openness, and the opportunity to connect with peers from across the globe.

The panel extends its heartfelt thanks to the ICON•S Secretariat, the Frances Kleeman Fund, the CCLA, the South African Research Chair (SARChI) in IP, Innovation and Development and the University of Cape Town for supporting their participation in the conference and to the University of Brasilia (UnB) for their excellent hosting of a superbly attended conference.

Celebrating Dr Sithembele Madala’s Doctoral Achievement

The Centre for Comparative Law in Africa warmly congratulates Dr Sithembele Madala on the successful completion of his doctoral studies and his graduation in April 2025.

As a doctoral researcher affiliated with the CCLA, Dr Madala focused his research on the pressing issue of compliance with regional court judgments in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). His work examined how adherence (or lack thereof) to judicial decisions affects the broader goals of regional integration in Africa.

By situating SADC within the wider continental framework, his research highlighted the vital relationship between law, politics, and integration, shedding light on both challenges and opportunities for African regionalism. The study makes an important contribution to debates on the effectiveness of regional institutions and proposes ways of strengthening compliance mechanisms to ensure that regional courts can meaningfully support Africa’s integration agenda.

His scholarship not only advances academic understanding but also provides practical insights for policymakers, legal practitioners, and scholars interested in the future of African governance.

The CCLA extends a big congratulations to Dr Madala on this wonderful achievement! 

Business and Human Rights Workshop: Developing Global South Perspectives

On the 1st of April 2025, the CCLA, in partnership with University of Derby researcher, Dr Eghosa Ekhator and co-research lead, Dr Oyeniyi Abe, hosted a workshop on Business and Human Rights Scholarship: Developing Networks and Perspectives from the Global South. This event was supported by funding from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

The workshop provided a space for scholars, practitioners, government agencies and other stakeholders to explore effective approaches for implementing the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPBHRs) from a Global South perspective.  Participants engaged in critical dialogue around interdisciplinary methodologies, normative frameworks, and grounded experiences of rights-based advocacy in corporate accountability.  Ways of building research networks and deepening scholarly engagement responsive to Southern realities were canvassed.  Stakeholders will have to leverage local jurisprudence, connect with grassroots movements, and understand extractive industry challenges, among others.  On an even broader scale, the initiative contributes to the shaping of legal scholarship that is anchored in African perspectives and global justice.

Guest Lectures and Career Seminar by Tapiwa Cheuka

From 12th to 14th March 2025, the CCLA welcomed Mr Tapiwa Cheuka for special guest lectures and a careers seminar for postgraduate students.  Mr Cheuka, who has served as a Senior Consultant on Trade in Services and Policy Advocacy Officer at the African Union Commission, shared insights from his professional journey in international trade policy and advocacy on the continent at the careers seminar.

In his lecture to the Law and Regional Integration in Africa (LRIDA) class, he spoke on the operations of the African Union, drawing on his experience to discuss the mechanisms and constraints shaping continental integration.  In the class on Comparative Law and Business in Africa (CLBA), he spoke on trade in services, discussing the scope of services liberalisation under the AfCFTA, and the role of legal practitioners in advancing African economic development. His visit provided an enriching learning opportunity for students considering careers in continental and international organisations. 

Book Panel: Asymmetric Power Relations and International Trade Law by Inebu C. Agbo-Ejeh

The CCLA is happy to announce the publication of Asymmetric Power Relations and International Trade Law: A Legal Analysis of Economic Partnership Agreements (Taylor & Francis, 2024) by Inebu C. Agbo-Ejeh, a doctoral graduate of the Centre.

The book interrogates the structural contradictions in the global trade regime through the lens of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), drawing on critical legal scholarship and historical institutionalism. It presents a sustained critique of how colonial legal logics continue to shape the participation of ACP countries (now known as Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States) in international trade negotiations.

Dr Agbo-Ejeh situates EPAs within a broader systemic asymmetry that governs relations between developed and developing countries in both multilateral and bilateral trade fora. Through a legal analysis of WTO special and differential treatment provisions and GATT Article XXIV, the work challenges the adequacy of these legal mechanisms to address the developmental concerns of peripheral states. The book is a timely intervention in debates on trade justice, legal reform, and postcolonial economic sovereignty.

Fall visit to Harvard

CCLA Director Ada Ordor spent the week of 6^th to 13^th October at Harvard Law School, speaking on her research at the JD Comparative Law Workshop, as well as serving as a respondent on a panel discussion on the theme of International Actors and Rule of Law Reform in the Global South.  She was also a panellist at the inaugural conference of Harvard’s African alumni tagged 2024 Africa Alive!  These invitations followed her time as the Henry Steiner Visiting Professor in Human Rights at the Harvard Law School in the Spring Semester of 2024, during which time she taught the courses: Regional Integration and Human Rights in Africa as well as The Legal Environment for Business in Africa.

New book publication by CCLA Fellow - Dr Julieth Gudo

Dr Gudo's book titled Civil Society Organisations and State-Owned Enterprises in South Africa: Promoting Accountability and Corporate Governance examines the important role which civil society organisations in South Africa play in confronting poor corporate governance in state-owned enterprises while pressing for better government accountability, transparency, and citizen participation. It captures an incisive discussion of corporate governance in South Africa’s state-owned enterprises, showing how civil society organisations (CSOs), as citizen representatives, make use of legal provisions to push for change. Maintaining an enabling legal environment for the work of CSOs and enforcing accountability provisions remain challenges which the book does much to address. The book is key to the work of policy advisors, compliance officers, social justice activists and other stakeholders and actors in the public, private and nonprofit sectors.  Lecturers, researchers, and students will particularly find it a rich resource for academic work on corporate governance in Africa’s public enterprises

Click here to purchase a copy.

CCLA Director, Ada Ordor was appointed Steiner Visiting Professor in Human Rights for the Spring semester 2024 at Harvard Law School.  During her time at HLS, Professor Ordor will convene the courses Regional Integration and Human Rights in Africa as well as The Legal Environment for Business in Africa, supervise student research papers and engage with the vibrant HLS academic life.  See more here: https://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/ada-ordor/

Recognising Academic Excellence: CCLA Celebrates Three New Doctoral Graduates at #UCTGrad2023 December

From Left to Right: Dr. Tebogo Lefifi, whose insightful research was on China’s Foreign Direct Investment in Africa: Regulation, Policy, and Legal Cooperation; Dr. Raisa Nyirongo, whose research navigated the compliance challenges associated with African Regional Integration; Professor Ada Ordor, who co-supervised all three theses; and Dr. Yakubu Nagu, whose work on 'Implementing the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA)' delves into the critical policies, regulations, laws, and institutions needed for development. Principal supervisors were: Emeritus Professor Evance Kalula for Drs Lefifi and Nyirongo and Professor Faizel Ismail for Dr Nagu.

OABLAF 10th Anniversary Reunion Conference

Fellows at the 10th Anniversary Conference of the Olu Akinkugbe Business Law in Africa Fellowship (OABLAF) 23-27 October, 2023 at UCT Law.

Wellington Notes

As beautiful Wellington, New Zealand prepared to co-host the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, its Victoria University hosted the 2023 International Society of Public Law (ICON-S) Conference, where the CCLA was proud to present a panel on the theme: “Regional Integration and Africa’s Island Nations: Leveraging the Leniency, Latitude and Limitations of the Law.”  Panellists spoke on island nations responses to various developments, including the use of regional courts, the free movement of people, the African Continental Free Trade Area and climate change imperatives.  See the panel abstract here.

Several plenaries and well over a hundred panels were constituted over the three-day event, which had as its theme: “Islands and Ocean.”  Although presentations were much broader than that, it was a theme that reverberated through various sessions of the conference as participants were repeatedly reminded in “housekeeping notes” of what to do in case of the triple hazards of fire, earthquake and tsunami!

Thankfully, the conference was successfully and safely executed, with a number of cherries – nay, kiwis - on top, including a Maori welcome event, a parliamentary reception and a Supreme Court visit hosted by the Chief Justice.  ICON-S 2023 was not just a superbly organised conference in Aotearoa, but a warm, vibrant ideas space for connecting and reconnecting, as participants gently, gracefully, but firmly took back the social space displaced by the lockdown years.

Triple book launch by CCLA research fellows on Digital Financial Inclusion, Trade and Migration, and Implementing Business and Human Rights Norms in Africa

We are thrilled to announce the launch of three books authored by our research fellows on key topics shaping Africa's future. The books offer innovative insights, practical solutions, and critical perspectives on Digital Financial Inclusion, Trade and Migration, and Implementing Business and Human Rights Norms in Africa.

These timely and significant contributions are the result of years of rigorous research and collaboration  and reflect the centre's commitment to advancing evidence-based knowledge, transformative impact, and thought leadership in Africa.

The three books are:

• Digital Financial Inclusion and regulation by Dr Ogochukwu Monye
• Trade, Migration and Law by Dr Victor Amadi
• Implementing Business and Human Rights Norms in Africa by Dr Oyeniyi Abe

New book publication by CCLA Associate - Dr Ogochukwu Monye

Dr. Monye's book titled Digital Financial Inclusion and Regulation explores the various considerations for achieving an effective regulatory strategy to improve financial access and usage in Nigeria and beyond. Gaps in the legal and institutional framework for digital financial services (DFS) as well as the barriers that contribute to financial exclusion are identified as are the policy changes needed to provide more extensive, accessible and sustainable financial inclusion value. The book covers divergent themes around the use of and insights for regulating industry financial services providers and challenger entities that herald industry disruption. Click here to purchase a copy.

Africa month program 2022

In the Africa month (May), we held a simulation exercise with postgraduate students of our Law, Regional Integration and Development in Africa (LRIDA) course. The simulation was on negotiations in respect of the African Union's Continental Free Trade Area initiative (#AfCFTA). Here is an immersive video on the program.

New book publication by CCLA Post-doctoral researcher

Dr. Victor Amadi's book explores how law and policy makers within the Southern African Development Community regional structure might reform the legal and regulatory frameworks to best capitalise the benefits of the movement of people. The book advances the discussion on regional integration and trade, by arguing that having a vibrant and rewarding trade in services will require an approach towards the unrestricted movement of persons. Click here to purchase a copy.

Book publication by CCLA research associate

Implementing Business and Human Rights Norms in Africa: Law and Policy Interventions by Dr. Oyeniyi Abe discusses the critical intersections between business, human rights, and the implementation of socially responsible norms in developing countries with particular reference to Africa. Click here to purchase a copy.

The CCLA at 10

You are cordially invited to attend a program to commemorate the CCLA’s 10th Anniversary. The event will hold on Monday 13th December from 5 pm to 6:30 pm. See this poster above for more information. Alternatively here is a link to register. 

CCLA Research Day Event

On Wednesday, 17 February 2021, a group of CCLA postgraduate researchers presented their work at a Research Day virtual seminar, organised by the Law Faculty Research Office. The research topics presented ranged from WTO appellate body appointments to the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), the impact of collective burgaining and the future of work in South Africa, a comparative study of Chinese Law and investments in Africa and from accountability checks on state-owned enterprises to the movement of people on the continent in the covid-induced era.

The Journal of Comparative Law in Africa (JCLA) is accredited by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET)

To download the poster, please click here.

Prof. Ada Ordor presents her research at Harvard Law School

Today, Prof. Ada Ordor presents her research at Harvard Law School on the operations of regional courts in Africa. She also discussed the question of access to regional courts in Africa and the implications for economic development.

CCLA Research Capacity Building Workshop (17 - 20 September 2019)

The CCLA and Law@Work co-hosts a Research Capacity Building Workshop sponsored by the TY Danjuma Fund for Law and Policy Development in Africa.

New Masters Programme!