Midlands State University Law Review

Conceptual Foundations of the Right to Remain Silent

Gift Manyatera — 2026-07-31

Criminal justice systems across the common and civil law divide have traditionally
grappled with the nature, scope and ambit of trial rights generally, particularly the right
to a fair trial. A key ingredient of a fair trial is the right to remain silent. This right to
remain silent conceptual foundations contribution is the first part of a two series
interrogation of the right in the Zimbabwean context. The analysis in this article is meant
to provide the jurisprudential context and development of the right to remain silent as it
currently manifests in criminal justice systems globally. The article analyses the scope of
the right and its historical development at the international and African regional level
invariably situating it in the broader right to a fair trial discourse.

Contemporary global perspectives on public participation and fulfilment of environmental rights

Veronica Zano — 2026-07-31

This article argues that meaningful public participation has evolved beyond a mere procedural
mechanism to become an indispensable component of the realisation of the right to an
environment that is not harmful to health and well-being. Tracing developments from the 1972
Stockholm Declaration through the Rio Declaration (particularly Principle 10), the Aarhus
Convention, and African regional instruments including the African Charter on Human and
Peoples' Rights and the SADC Treaty and Forestry Protocol, the article analyses how these
instruments have progressively embedded public participation, access to information, and
access to justice as essential pillars of environmental protection. It evaluates the translation of
these international norms into national legal systems, identifying persistent challenges
including restricted access to environmental information, weak implementation of
Environmental Impact Assessment processes, and barriers to meaningful public engagement
in environmental decision-making. The article considers Zimbabwe's engagement with these
frameworks since the 1992 Rio Summit and assesses the country's progress in domesticating
participatory environmental principles. The article's novelty lies in demonstrating that the
effectiveness of participatory environmental rights depends not merely on their recognition in
international and regional legal instruments but on their coherent domestic implementation
within rights-based environmental governance. It concludes that despite significant normative
advances at international and regional levels, meaningful public participation remains
contingent upon states enacting and effectively implementing legislation that empowers
citizens, particularly vulnerable communities to participate in environmental governance. The

article argues that new paradigms are required to ensure inclusive environmental decision-
making that recognises the interdependence between environmental protection and the realisation of other human rights.

Examining the jus ad bellum - jus in bello-human rights law dichotomy from an African freedom values perspective: Towards comprehensive governance of autonomous weapon systems

Dr. Gift Manyatera — 2026-07-31

Since 2013, following a presentation of the first report on lethal autonomous weapon systems
(AWS) at the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council (HRC) by the late Prof. Christof
Heyns of the University of Pretoria in South Africa, states have been gathering at the UN to
discuss challenges that are raised by AWS. One of the main objectives of the UN meetings on
AWS is to map out how the international community can comprehensively respond to AWS. At
the heart of the UN AWS debate is which legal regime or normative framework should guide
the discussions or formulation of policy on AWS. The battle of which legal regime should take
precedent in the AWS discussions often manifest itself in questions about which UN or
international fora should states debate the challenges posed by AWS. While the discussions on
AWS may have started in 2013 in the UN HRC, some states quickly argued for the discussions
to be moved from the HRC – an international human rights law-focussed framework – to the
UN Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) – a jus in bello or international
humanitarian law-focussed framework. Many states and scholars have forcefully argued that
the UN CCW is the appropriate forum within which AWS should be discussed. For the past
years that the AWS discussion has been in the CCW, a number of states have repeatedly insisted
on the jus in bello – jus ad bellum – international human rights law (IHRL) dichotomy, arguing
that it is jus in bello or international humanitarian law (IHL) that should determine the
acceptability or otherwise of AWS. Indeed, in the recent meeting of the UN Group of
Governmental Experts (UNGGE) on AWS held from 2 to 8 December 2021, a number of states
objected to the inclusion of IHRL in the report of the UNGGE on AWS, reminding other states
that the UN CCW is an IHL-focussed framework whose mandate is limited to situations of
armed conflict. Towards the international community’s goal of a comprehensive governance
framework on AWS, this paper considers, from an African freedom ethics perspective, whether,
when considering the acceptability of AWS, and in the interest of diversity of values, ethics and
interests, it is correct to insist on the dichotomy between jus in bello, jus ad bellum and IHRL.