This philosophically and legally grounded volume explores the human right to health in Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on corporate responsibility. Combining practical insights with thorough scholarship, it analyzes the universal legal basis of the right, the responsibilities it entails, and how it is applied within specific African contexts. Health has long been recognized as a fundamental human right, protected by Article 25 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 12 of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. While the obligation of states to uphold this right is clear, the extent of corporate responsibility, legally and in stakeholder expectations, remains unclear. This book fills that gap by advocating for a strategic and context-aware approach to corporate health obligations in Africa. It emphasizes that such responsibilities should stand apart from the capacity or political will of states to fulfill their own human rights commitments. The book gathers contributors from diverse countries and disciplines, such as law, political science, ethics, and medicine. It examines whether, and how, corporations, businesses, and other private entities can be held to binding human rights duties, especially concerning the right to health. It also discusses how these duties might be implemented in African settings through policies, regulations, public health programs, and corporate accountability systems. A distinctive feature of the book is its engagement with African intellectual traditions to strengthen the normative concept of corporate responsibility. It also emphasizes the importance of shared responsibility between public and private actors in addressing structural health challenges on the continent. The Human Right to Health and Corporate Responsibility in Sub-Saharan Africa is a timely academic and research resource for scholars and students in law, philosophy, ethics, business, public health, and the social sciences. It is also of interest to policymakers, NGOs, and human rights advocates seeking to align corporate conduct with fundamental human rights in African settings.
Thierry Ngosso is a Cameroonian political philosopher. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Louvain (2015). Affiliated with the Catholic University of Central Africa (UCAC), the University of Maroua (UMa) in Cameroon, and the University of St. Gallen (HSG) in Switzerland, his academic work focuses on applied ethics, corporate responsibility, and comparative political theory. He is particularly interested in global justice and, more specifically, in three contemporary and interconnected issues in this field: climate change, human rights, especially the human right to health, and migration. Ngosso manages the HSG Competence Center for African Research and the UCAC Ethics and Public Policy Laboratory he founded in 2019. Former Berggruen Fellow at the Harvard Lilly and Safra Center for Ethics (2018-2019) and former Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione Fellow (2019-2023) researching African perspectives of the Human Right to Health, Ngosso will be Humboldt Fellow (2025-2027) and focus on the corporate political climate responsibility in decarbonization contexts.
Jennifer Heaven Mike is currently a Global Studies Scholar and an Assistant Professor of Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies (WGGS) at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, USA. She holds the Hampton and Esther Boswell Distinguished University Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies position at DePauw University. Mike is also an Assistant Professor of Law at the American University of Nigeria (AUN), Yola, Adamawa. Mike further serves as the Director of AUN's Centre for Governance, Human Rights and Development (CGDHR) and the Director of the Intersessional (Summer Program) at AUN. She has also worked as the HoD (Chair) of the Department of Public and International Law (PIL). Mike previously worked as a Postgraduate Teaching Assistant (PTA) with the University of Exeter. Mike has served as the Gender and Diversity Officer of the Academic and Professional Committee of the International Bar Association (IBA). She obtained her PhD in Law at the University of Exeter, UK and LLM at London Metropolitan University. As a qualified legal practitioner, Mike has worked with law firms in the UK and Nigeria. Mike had an extensive professional background, including serving as the Legal Advisor and Company Secretary of EcoSpectra Ltd. Her role involved providing legal counsel and guidance to the company, as well as overseeing corporate governance and compliance matters. Mike's scholarly engagements draw on the principles, concepts, literature and studies that inform international law, human rights, public health, economics, medicines and gender studies. Her research interest is to further explore the connections between human rights and other disciplines. Mike has written extensively on the right to health, pharmaceutical corporations' obligations to health and other human rights issues. She is also a reviewer for several international journals.
