Blog& commentary

Who pays the cost? The UK's care worker regime and the limits of international law

Christiana Essie Sagay

Almost all nations observe almost all principles of international law and almost all of their obligations almost all the time.

Louis Henkin, How Nations Behave

I keep returning to Henkin. Not because the line is comforting, but because of what it quietly concedes.

Law, power, and the stories we tell ourselves I

Christiana Essie Sagay

It's the holiday season, and I ventured into the cinema to watch Gladiator II in a moment of rebellion against the usual researching, reading, and writing. When I grabbed my ticket, plus one in tow, I didn't expect to leave thinking about sovereignty.

Global health: a question of international peace and security?

Christiana Essie Sagay

Determining that the unprecedented extent of the Ebola outbreak in Africa constitutes a threat to international peace and security.

SC Resolution 2177

The remarks of the United Nations Secretary General, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic, returned the Council to a question it has never fully settled.

The Maputo Protocol: empowering African women through progressive labour mobility rights

Christiana Essie Sagay

On July 11, 2003, at the 2nd ordinary session of the Assembly of the African Union in Maputo, Mozambique, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa was adopted, known simply as the Maputo Protocol.

The agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA): what this means for Africans and intra regional mobility

Christiana Essie Sagay

Having regard to the aspirations of Agenda 2063 for a continental market with the free movement of persons, capital, goods and services.

AfCFTA, Preamble

Free movement is written into the aspiration. Whether it survives the ratification is a different question.

A chronology: interrogating international co-operation and solidarity amid COVID-19, "The Great Lockdown"

Christiana Essie Sagay

The COVID-19 virus knows no borders. This has been a wake up call for the world to stand in solidarity and work together.

United Nations Secretary General

If there was ever a time for countries and governments to support one another, it was this one. The chronology suggests they did not.

On the question of obligation

Christiana Essie Sagay

Almost all nations observe almost all principles of international law and almost all of their obligations almost all the time.

Louis Henkin, How Nations Behave

Almost all of the time. Not all of the time. The gap is where the discipline actually lives.

A seat at the table! Africa's bid for a permanent seat at the United Nations Security Council

Christiana Essie Sagay

The current composition of the Security Council does not reflect the world in which we live.

Cyril Ramaphosa, President of South Africa

Seventy five years gone by, two thousand five hundred and fifty two resolutions, and the composition of the Council still answers to 1945.

Accountability beyond borders

Christiana Essie Sagay

No, America is not coming to save you. No, the United Nations is not coming to save you. It is because of these blasé international law principles: territorial sovereignty and non interference. These two principles are the architecture of the silence.