The Baldy Center Podcast

The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy at the University at Buffalo
Episode #38
Podcast recording date: 11/20/2023
Host-producer: Logan
Guest Speaker: Mihreteab Taye, UB School of Law
Contact: BaldyCenter@buffalo.edu

Transcription begins.

Logan:

Hello and welcome to The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy Podcast. I'm your host Logan. On this episode, we are joined by Dr. Mihreteab Taye, Lecturer in the School of Law. We learn about his academic journey and current research on human rights and state behavior in relation to international courts in Africa. Here is Dr. Taye.

Thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate your time. How about you start out by introducing yourself to the audience briefly?

Mihreteab:

My name is Mihreteab Taye, so I come to UB from New York University where I have been a research scholar for one year since 2022. Before that, I was a postdoctoral researcher at New York University for one year. So I started my postdoc in 2021 September. I'm Ethiopian and I have been teaching in Ethiopia different courses, particularly courses related to international law, human rights, and commercial arbitration as well. So at UB, I’m just bringing this experience. I just started at the Law School here in August as a lecturer. And yeah, this is generally my background.

Logan:

I know you have studied all over the world. You have come from many different universities, your background from your BA to your PhD. So what were some of the key partnerships or collaborations that have been instrumental in advancing your work and how have they contributed to your success

Mihreteab:

Well, partnerships and collaborations are important in academia especially because there is a need to publish and the need to disseminate information. And at times it is not only that an individual can do much by himself or herself. So I have been collaborating with different scholars both in Ethiopia, in Europe, and also in the United States. And this has helped me to advance my scholarship and to foster my teaching as well. So my recent collaboration, if I can call it a collaboration, it is with the Scholars at Risk Network. I come to UB through the Scholars at Risk, which was facilitated by the Scholars at Risk Network, which is a global organization that comprises over 500 universities. And through this organization, UB contacted me about my background and everything. That is how I came to UB. At UB I am doing my research that I was doing while I was in New York. So I am continuing along that path.

Logan:

And you stated in an interview at the beginning of this semester, in summer 2023, that your research will be focusing on international courts, specifically the African Human Rights Court and the East African Community Court examining Tanzania and Rwanda's engagement with these courts shedding light on the state behavior toward international human rights institutions and their impact on regional human rights protection. So since August, have you come to any preliminary conclusions, or could you provide our listeners with some new information that you have discovered since beginning your research here at UB?

Mihreteab:

Yeah, in fact, last week I was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania presenting my research on this issue. So I presented a paper on the withdrawal of Tanzania and Rwanda from the African Human Rights Court while they have maintained their membership at the East African Community Court of Justice. So this recent presentation I presented at the American Society of International Law Midterm meeting, which also brought some scholars from different parts of the world to present their research. One of the presentations was my paper on this issue.

So the paper provides, it is part of my research that I'm doing at UB, and it provides insights into the nuanced dynamics of state behavior towards international courts by particularly looking at Rwanda and Tanzania as a case study. Why I choose this topic is because Rwanda and Tanzania are part of the East African community, which has also a court, the East African Court of Justice, and they are also part of the human rights system on the continental level. But what is interesting is that both states have withdrawn individual access from the African court, but they have maintained the individual access to the East African Court of Justice. So my preliminary conclusion on this issue is that when I see the cases of these countries, the reasons they have provided for withdrawing from the African Court of Justice could also be reasons to withdraw from the East African Court of Justice. What does this mean?

It means that Rwanda, let's take Rwanda. Rwanda has provided as a justification for its withdrawal from the African court things like the African court has become a forum for genocide convicts at national level to escape from the convictions they have at national level. So this is because convicts at national level in Rwanda started to bring case before the African Court of Justice and Rwanda was not happy about that. And the case of genocide is a very sensitive issue in Rwanda. So that is the justifications they gave. So they officially said that the court has become forum for genocide convicts to escape.

But when we look at the East African Court of Justice, the same conclusion could be drawn because I found in my research a case where a genocide convict has brought a case before the East African Court of Justice as well, but Rwanda did not withdraw the individual access from the East African Court of Justice. And the question is why withdraw from the African Court of Justice but not from the East African Court of Justice? The preliminary conclusions that I reached is this all boils to institutional design of the court because it is easier to withdraw individual access from the African Court of Justice, but not from the East African Court of Justice. If you look at the design future of those two courts, the protocols that established the African human rights system does not automatically grant individuals to bring case before the court. So there is no individual access, but it provides that by declaration the states can provide individual access to citizens, to citizens or other people living in their country. So a state is free to make a declaration or not. So Rwanda had made a declaration and that is what Rwanda has withdrawn, that it has withdrawn the declaration, which is easier because it can be done at individual basis. Whereas when you look at the East African Court of Justice and individual access is provided by the treaties that establishes the court. So if a state has to withdraw individual access, it has to withdraw from the whole system because it has to withdraw from the whole treaty. So it means that it has to withdraw from the whole East African community, meaning that it will lose economically because it is an organization that is about economic integration. So there are incentives to stay in the system. That is my preliminary conclusion. Again, if you look all Tanzania, the same thing can be provided. Tanzania provided as a reason for withdrawal from the African court saying that mostly the reasons are there were overwhelming number of cases against Tanzania, I think more than 156 something cases, against Tanzania. This is because the court is based in Arusha, Tanzania, and it is easy for citizens to reach the court. But the East African Court of Justice also in Tanzania, it sits in the same city. So there are also a number of cases pending before the court or cases decided by the court. So the same reason can be given also here. So my preliminary conclusion is that what matters is institutional design, the design the way that courts are designed, so institutional design can facilitate or inhibit the withdrawal of states. So this is my preliminary conclusion, and this is what I have presented last week in Pittsburgh. And I will be continuing to further research on this and see what other conclusions I can extract.

Logan:

And how is your current state of your research or your current conclusions that you are coming up with in your current research, how does that differ from where your research started and your thoughts or biases perhaps going into your research topic?

Mihreteab:

Yeah, when I started research on international courts, in fact I started it as a PhD student. So when I did my PhD, I was researching the East African community and the SADC Tribunal, which is a tribunal in Southern Africa. So I studied the creation and institutionalization of those two courts at that time. But thereafter, I published a few articles from that on the East African Court of Justice. And now I am just bringing this research that they had to look at further and include another court, which is African Human Rights court. So my focus is not limited to the East African Court of Justice, but also it is included. So when I started this research, I was looking only at the withdrawal of individual access from the African Human Rights court. But when I was looking that a question came to mind saying that, well, those courts are withdrawing from the African Court of Justice because it is not only Rwanda and Tanzania, but there are also other states that have withdrawn, for example, Benin and Côte D'Ivoire. But what intrigued me is that Rwanda and Tanzania are part of the East Africa Court of Justice, which I am familiar in my research. And I saw a trend that they have withdrawn from the court, but not from the East African Court of Justice. So that is how I started to ask, why is that? Why are they still in the East African system, but not in the African Court of Human Rights? So that is how it started.

Logan:

And outside of your research, you have also taken on a position here as a lecturer and as a professor, and I know you have also been a professor at the School of Law and Federalism, Ethiopian Civil Service University. So what has your experience like been at UB as a professor and a teacher and how has that been different than teaching in Ethiopia?

Mihreteab:

Yeah, I have not yet taught any course at UB, but I am going to teach in the spring. So in the spring I will be teaching Comparative Human Rights and International Commercial Arbitration. So while my forthcoming teaching opportunities in the spring is exciting and I am looking forward to it, I have been preparing for my classes, like preparing syllabus and looking for what approach to use in my teaching and so forth. And so my experience of teaching in Ethiopia will be handy here because I have been teaching human rights and also international commercial arbitration back in Ethiopia. So I am bringing that experience to the classroom here. So of course engaging with students and facilitating their learning journey fills me with enthusiasm and a sense of responsibility. So I am looking forward to that.

Logan:

And within your research and in your future position as a professor, do you think that there'll be any ways for students to get involved with your current research or what may that look like for a future student who is interested in your work? What is your recommendation or what are your thoughts on how to get involved in that type of work? Or if there is going to be a possibility with you, what that possibility may look like?

Mihreteab:

Yeah, well, there is a possibility to work with students to support if they would like to do research in African international courts and so forth. In fact, it is a good question because two weeks ago a student contacted me, and she is doing research on comparing the European and the African human rights system. So I talked to that student and in fact, she is probably going to work with me in the future as well once I start teaching. So it is always, my office is always open, and any student can contact me if a student wants to work on this type of research. So I think it is, there is that possibility.

Logan:

As a legal expert, what advice do you have for young scholars and practitioners interested in pursuing a career in international development or human rights law in Africa?

Mihreteab:

Well, it is, I would stress that the significance of a holistic approach for young scholars and practitioners who aim to work in human rights and global and development in Africa. So understanding the multidimensional nature of this field is very crucial and very important. So it is important to understand or to comprehend the local context while navigating the global framework, and this will be, it will give them a solid foundation for an impactful contribution. Another thing is grounding knowledge in the specific sociopolitical context of Africa is very essential, which is engaging with local communities. It is important to immerse in the grassroots initiatives in Africa, and this will probably help to understand the context while navigating the global framework. Another thing is maintaining resilience and adaptability. Adaptable mindset is important, which of course, challenges are inherent in such situations, but they serve as an opportunity. So young scholars should wait for challenges, and they should take that challenge as opportunity, not as a problem. So advocacy and collaboration, collaborative work is very important. So engaging in advocacy for policy change that fosters positive transformation and collaborating with diverse stakeholders is also very important. But above all, maintain a passion and commitment to this field. That is also an important thing, I would say.

Logan:

Well, thank you so much for our conversation. It was very enlightening and I am sure everyone at UB is very excited and looking forward to taking your courses next semester and seeing where your research goes from here at University of Buffalo.

Mihreteab:

Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Logan:

That was Dr. Mihreteab Taye, Lecturer in the School of Law, and this has been The Baldy Center for Law and Social Podcast produced by the University at Buffalo. Let us know what you think by visiting our X, formerly Twitter, @BaldyCenter, or emailing us at baldycenter@buffalo.edu. To learn more about the Center, visit our website, buffalo.edu/baldycenter. The theme music for the season was composed by Matias Omar. My name is Logan and on behalf of The Baldy Center, thank you for listening.

Transcription ends.