A “bofrot” seller and single mother, Ms. Priscilla Akwagu, who did not give up on her dream of becoming a professional teacher, has attained first-class honours in Twi Education at the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), in pursuit of her dream.
The holdings of periodic free and fair elections have become a key step to consolidating democracies around the world. This calls for an effective means of addressing election-related issues and building strong election management bodies that have the ability to ensure the
involvement of various stakeholders in the entire process. The acceptance or otherwise of election results, especially in developing countries where elections usually end in unnecessary conflicts, make electoral reforms very important.
The North and South divide in the practice and application of international laws have been previously perceived to be evident in international environmental law where the Global developed North countries on the one hand advocate for a collective action to protect the environment while the Global developing Southern countries, on the other hand, argue for social and economic justice in practice.
Ghana has experienced three peaceful transfers of power over the past 26 years. There are effective systems in place that have been handling election-related issues in the country. The people have accepted democracy as the ‘only game in town’. The paper adopts an expository approach. It uses both primary and secondary sources of information such as press releases, news items, official reports from the EC and various election observer groups and international organizations. Interviews and focus group discussions were also undertaken.
This study set out to investigate activities of civil society organisations (CSOs) and how they have promoted democratic consolidation in Ghana. Specifically, it assessed the contributions of three independent policy think tanks, the Institute of Economic of Affairs (IEA), the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) and the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) to the deepening of Ghana’s democracy.
With the soaring increase in demand for oil owing to its rapid economic growth and expansion, coupled with her quest to build a strong and formidable security system, China has no option than to ensure her energy security. For a country whose oil consumption has been increasing yearly, the need to secure sustainable and affordable energy supplies is imperative. China’s policy of selfreliance with regard to energy security is no longer feasible. The country’s growing dependence on the global energy supplies and oil-rich countries such as Russia and the West Asia region has become complex.
The challenges confronted by the world in the 21st century are enormous; from the massive outflow of refugees, the threat of terrorism, the need for a general consensus to protect the environment, etc. There is thus the need for scholars, practitioners, and stakeholders of international law to think of effective and efficient ways of developing robust and strong international laws to deal effectively with these challenges.
This paper is an attempt at analysing the intricacies between international law, the concept of Responsibility to Protect and its implications for the sovereignty of modern states. The paper examines how the concept of responsibility to protect (as stipulated by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS)) impacts on the sovereignty of states. It adopts the essay style of writing and reviews a number of documents on the subject of international law, sovereignty and the responsibility to protect.
Expropriation is a right granted to States under international law; however this right does not guarantee States to abuse their power to unlawfully seize properties without following due process or paying the right compensation. In August 2018, the president of South Africa proposed a bill that would allow the government to expropriate land without compensation and this bill has attracted the attention of both scholars of international law and foreign investors.
This article sets out to review the extant literature on civil society. Indeed the literature on civil society abounds
with several views and perspectives, especially on the theoretical debates on the concept. However, in order to
avoid the unnecessary entanglement of the unending theoretical debates that have characterized the subject, the
article focuses on the activities and operations as well as the usefulness of civil society in the twenty first century.
In our world today, the control over and the use of a country’s natural resources (and the biological diversity of which they are a part) usually present a lot of challenges for both policy makers and implementing agencies and institutions. These challenges range from weak institutional capacities and technocratic hurdles to opposition from local communities for whom policies may be meant for. However, if such challenges are effectively mitigated, large prospects usually associated with the sustainable use and management of these natural resources may be realised.
In this essay, we use the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) in developing countries (specifically, the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Ghana) to illustrate why and how States can implement international agreements and for that matter comply with international law without necessarily compromising on equally implementing effective policies to meet their domestic responsibility, particularly when such MEAs may be deemed by some as instruments that curtail the enjoyment
This paper focuses on the relationship between discursive exclusion practices and terrorism. The changing linguistic meaning of civilisation, the structure of modern discourse and the objectivity of knowledge claims undergirding western civilisation have contributed immensely to the construction of the idea of terrorism. The paper argues that these expressions of self and practices define the individual and give credence to their existence.
This paper argues that it is not the prison rules and regulations that alter the behaviour of inmates but rather the ideological justification of their religious faith. The article draws upon the social constructionist theory of reality to underpin the discussion of the data. Data was gathered through in-depth interviews and the distribution of semistructured questionnaires. When analysed, the data revealed that although inmates had the right to practice the precepts of their religious faith as defined in law, in practice, these religious rights were not entirely observed.
Immunities, though part of the law of the land, are to a certain extent an exemption from the general
This paper is an attempt at reviewing Ghana’s foreign policy as a member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). It examines the key tenets of the NAM and juxtaposes it with Ghana’s foreign policy directions from the early days of Nkrumah till recent times when virtually all African states have taken sides with one world power or the other. It is about the reflections of what the NAM stands for and how its members have been conducting foreign policy, and the successes and failures in the developing world, and the lessons that can be learnt from its existence in the last six decades.
This article discusses the efforts made to ensure the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Ghana. The discussion is based on analysis of primary data gathered through interviews and analysis of several official reports, policy documents, legislative instruments, and Acts of Parliament of Ghana that pertains to environmental protection, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable development.
This study examines human and environmental rights issues in unregulated artisanal small-scale mining and its impact on the communities in the Mpohor District of the Western Region of Ghana. Mixed methods approach and descriptive survey design were employed in this study. Purposive and simple random techniques were employed to select 117 participants. Structured questionnaire and semi-structured interview guide were the instruments used for data collection. SPSS software was used to analyse the quantitative data, while thematic analysis was used to analyse the qualitative data.
Politics in Ghana’s fourth republic is an interesting phenomenon. The intricacies in Ghanaian politics is one that requires constant analysis. In this paper, we examine some of these intricacies – the question and role of identity in politics in Ghana. We particularly analyse how ethnicity and religion influence elections in one of Africa’s promising democracies. The analysis is based primarily on the scrutiny of official reports and detailed review of published works.
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