The article aims to think anew about the jurisdiction ratione materiae of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The Court, based in Arusha, enjoys a distinctive contentious jurisdiction which extends to the interpretation and application of any other relevant human rights instrument ratified by the States concerned. The Court’s striking features set it apart from human rights bodies and most international courts. Its jurisdiction has been received with scepticism and fear arguing that, if the Court extends its jurisdiction over treaties other than the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, this will lead to jurisprudential chaos and will undermine the formation of the African corpus juris. This article discusses the case law of the Court since 2013, when the Court started functioning, and argues that these concerns are over-emphasized. The analysis underlines the shifting authority of specialized and/or regional courts; the need not to overstress but to appreciate positively instances of divergence; and the consideration of new conceptual and geographical topoi, in which international law is to be found and produced.

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This article addresses the historic evolution and recent proliferation of memory laws that prohibit symbolic speech in Eastern Europe. A phenomenon of the latter part of the twentieth century, these laws traditionally enabled democracies to defend themselves against extreme ideologies by restricting symbols of totalitarian regimes. An analysis of recently adopted laws in Ukraine and Russia, however, demonstrates a shift away from these aims to restrictions on the use of symbolic speech as measures to counteract external security threats and competing historical narratives. In the climate of ‘memory wars’ in Eastern Europe, these laws are increasingly employed for the politics of memory and are likely to be misused for expedient political gains while running afoul of international human rights law, including freedom of expression and other norms embodied in the European Convention on Human Rights. The article concludes that drafting these types of laws narrowly and derogating from freedom of expression obligations in times of emergency might help to ensure their compliance with international law.

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sex or gender segregationreligious schoolseducation, discriminationBrown v Board of Education schoolsX School v OfstedAl-Hijrah v Ofsted

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Protecting children’s informational privacy has never been more difficult. To what extent does it depend
upon parental control and consent, and how is this factor incorporated into the law seeking to protect children’s informational privacy? This article addresses these questions, considering the relevant jurisprudence of the English courts, in particular under the tort of misuse of private information, and the relevant jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In this article I argue that the relevant jurisprudence in both jurisdictions reveals a doctrine that prioritises parental control and consent, above the harm of intrusion to the child. This risks laying a legal terrain that does not accommodate the protection and vindication of children’s informational privacy rights when they conflict with the wishes of, or are not actively protected by, that child’s parents.

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