Justiciability of Socioeconomic Rights in Nigeria and Its Critics: Does International Law Provide any Guidance?

Abstract

A recalcitrantly enduring polemic in the annals of human rights and constitutional law jurisprudence in Nigeria centers on whether socioeconomic rights are justiciable in the country. This burgeoning controversy is rooted not only in the balkanization of the two principal genres of human rights and their compartmentalization into distinct parts of the Constitution, namely Chapters II and IV respectively, but also in explicitly baptizing one as ‘fundamental rights’ whilst denying similar appellation to the other. Adding to this obfuscation is deafening silence on the part of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, thereby fueling the belief, in many circles, that domestic legal frameworks do not bestow recognition upon socioeconomic rights. But does this understanding represent the correct position of the law? Does international law offer any guidance? Responding to these questions is the task of this paper. Its central contention is that current reality, made more evident by international human rights law, leans toward justiciability of socioeconomic rights.