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ItemESG harmonizing environment, society and governance for a sustainable future(Suigeneris Publishing House, 2026)The intellectual genealogy of Environmental, Social, and Governance criteria as an integrated framework for evaluating non-financial corporate performance is more complex than its apparent novelty might suggest. The vocabulary of ESG is relatively recent, crystallising with the United Nations Global Compact's landmark 2004 report, Who Cares Wins, which first synthesised environmental stewardship, social responsibility, and governance integrity into a unified analytical framework for investment decision-making.¹ But the substantive concerns that ESG aggregates have a much longer pedigree. Environmental considerations entered the mainstream of development and corporate governance discourse during the 1970s, catalysed by the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, the publication of the Club of Rome's Limits to Growth in the same year, and the nascent environmental movements of the Global North. The World Bank's initial environmental assessment requirements date to this period, reflecting an early recognition that development finance should account for ecological consequences beyond the immediate financial metrics of project viability.
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ItemRecalibrating ESG conditionalities in development finance: a doctrinal and policy analysis of The World Bank environmental and social framework and its implications for equitable development in Sub-Saharan Africa(Suigeneris Publishing House, 2026)This paper critically examines the Environmental and Social Framework (ESF) of the World Bank as the central instrument of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) regulation in contemporary multilateral development finance. Deployed across more than 100borrowingstates, the ESF purports to entrench sustainable and inclusive development. Yet its operationalisation produces profound tensions with the imperatives of equity, developmental sovereignty, and proportionate governance in the Global South. Drawing on a doctrinal and policy-oriented methodology — combining institutional legal analysis, comparative public law, and development economics — this paper interrogates the legal architecture and practical implications of the ESF's Environmental and Social Standards (ESS1–ESS10). It argues that the Framework functions as a quasi-binding conditionality regime whose universal application conceals structural asymmetries disadvantageous to low- and middle-income countries. The paper introduces and theorises the concept of 'ESG asymmetry', defined as the systemic imbalance whereby developing economies are subjected to the most stringent sustainability compliance obligations despite having contributed least to global environmental degradation. Sub-Saharan Africa, and Uganda in particular, furnishes the empirical terrain for doctrinal analysis, illuminating the collision between ESG standards and plural legal systems, informal labour markets, and deficient institutional capacity. The paper concludes by advancing a four- principle recalibrated ESG framework — incorporating context-sensitive application, capacity- based compliance, an ESG Equity Index, and development-first sequencing —as a legally and empirically grounded pathway towards a more just international development finance architecture.
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ItemThe mufumbiro tragedy and the Ubuntu imperative: why legal positivism alone cannot carry the moral weight of justice, and why Ubuntu must become an operative, not ornamental, constitutional principle in Uganda(Suigeneris Publishing House, 2026)The detention of Alex Waiswa Mufumbiro and the death of his wife, Edith Katende Mufumbiro, on 8 April 2026, while he remained incarcerated, present a profound jurisprudential crisis within Uganda's legal system.2 This paper argues that the incident exposes the structural inadequacy of legal positivism when divorced from moral philosophy,3 and advances the thesis that Ubuntu must be elevated from a passive cultural reference to an active, binding interpretive principle within Ugandan constitutional law. Through doctrinal analysis grounded in the Constitution of the Republic of Uganda 1995, constitutional interpretation theory, and comparative jurisprudence drawn from South Africa and the common law world, this article contends that Ubuntu offers a necessary corrective to rigid legal formalism, particularly in cases implicating human dignity, grief, and relational justice.4 The article proposes a Humanitarian Bail Doctrine, a framework for courts exercising inherent jurisdiction to order compassionate temporary release, and a series of legislative and institutional reforms designed to operationalise Ubuntu's normative demands within Uganda's criminal justice architecture.
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ItemBetween safety and illegality: a statutory–constitutional–jurisprudential synthesis of the Building Control Act (2013, as Amended 2026) in Uganda(Suigeneris Publishing House, 2026)The Building Control Act (2013, as amended 2026) of Uganda represents one of the most significant — and contentious — intersections between regulatory governance, constitutional rights, and developmental realism in the country's legal order. Establishing a mandatory permit regime administered through Building Control Committees, the Act imposes technical requirements that the overwhelming majority of Uganda's urban population cannot satisfy. The 2026 amendments escalated its penal architecture to include per-square-metre fines, custodial sentences of up to two years, and mandatory demolition at owner's cost. This article subjects the Act to a tripartite analysis — statutory, constitutional, and jurisprudential — drawing on the Physical Planning Act, the Public Health Act, and Articles 8A, 21, 28, 42, 44, and 92 of theConstitution of Uganda. Through the application of seminal Ugandan judicial decisions — Attorney General v Salvatori Abuki, Attorney General v Susan Kigula, CEHURDv Attorney General, and the KCCA demolition jurisprudence — the article advances the thesis that while the Act remains formally valid within Uganda's positivist legal order, its constitutional tenability is severely strained and its jurisprudential legitimacy structurally undermined. The article introduces the concept of the 'mass illegality paradox' as the operative mechanism through which a formally valid law collapses in practice, and proposes a reform framework grounded in regularisation, tiered compliance, and the substantive justice mandate of Article 126(2)(e).
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ItemSelective prosecution, moral imbalance, and ubuntu-centred post-conviction justice: The conviction of Agnes Nandutu and the Karamoja iron sheets scandal(Suigeneris Publishing House, 2026)The conviction of Agnes Nandutu by the Anti-Corruption Division of the High Courton 8 April 2026 in connection with the Karamoja iron sheets scandal highlights a tension between procedural correctness and equitable justice in Uganda. While her conviction under s 21A(1) of the Anti-Corruption Act 2 was legally sound, the withdrawal of charges against co-implicated officials raises grave concerns under Article 21 of the Constitution of Uganda 1995, which guarantees equality beforethelaw.3 Ubuntu, an African ethical framework centred on relational personhood and restorative accountability, provides a jurisprudential basis for post-conviction corrective interventions — ensuring that justice is not merely procedurally valid but morally coherent, contextually grounded, and relationally complete