Aims & Scope

The Bayero Law Review (BLR) is a double-blind peer-reviewed, open-access journal published twice a year by the Faculty of Law, Bayero University Kano. It publishes original doctrinal, comparative, socio-legal and jurisprudential scholarship across all fields of law, with particular strength in Islamic law and in the constitutional, criminal, commercial and international questions arising from Nigerian statute, case law and policy, and from the legal systems of northern Nigeria in particular.

SUBJECT AREAS

• Islamic law — sources and jurisprudence and their application in Nigeria; family law including marriage, divorce, khul', maintenance, guardianship and custody; succession and the administration of estates; Islamic criminal law and its codification in the Sharia penal and criminal procedure codes; the Sharia Court of Appeal and the Sharia courts, their jurisdiction, practice and appeals; Hisbah and religious enforcement bodies; Islamic commercial law, non-interest banking, takaful and sukuk; waqf and zakat administration; and the teaching and reform of Islamic law.
• Public law and constitutional governance — constitutional interpretation and federalism, the distribution of legislative powers, separation of powers, legislative oversight, state and local government autonomy, emergency powers, electoral law and election petitions, citizenship and indigeneity, administrative law and judicial review, public procurement, and the appointment, independence, funding and discipline of the judiciary.
• Criminal law and criminal justice administration — substantive criminal law under the Penal Code and the Sharia penal codes, criminal procedure and the Administration of Criminal Justice legislation both federal and state, sentencing, bail and pre-trial detention, custodial and non-custodial reform, policing and law enforcement, juvenile justice, terrorism, banditry, kidnapping and insurgency, drug and cybercrime offences, human trafficking, and corruption and economic and financial crime.
• Human rights — enforcement of fundamental rights and the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) Rules, women's and girls' rights including education, age of marriage, reproductive and property rights, children's rights and the domestication of the Child Rights Act in the northern states, the rights of persons with disabilities, minority and religious rights, freedom of expression, information and assembly, the limits national security places on rights, internally displaced persons, and the African and international human rights systems.
• Private law — land law and the Land Use Act, tenure, compulsory acquisition, compensation and title, urban and customary tenure; tort including negligence, nuisance and defamation; contract; family law and succession under customary and statutory regimes; the ascertainment and proof of customary law; equity and trusts; evidence; and civil procedure and jurisdiction.
• Commercial, corporate and financial law — company law under the Companies and Allied Matters Act, incorporation, directors' duties, minority protection, corporate governance, insolvency and business rescue; secured transactions and movable-asset finance; banking and payments, fintech and digital financial services; insurance; anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism; consumer protection; competition; taxation both federal and state; and the regulation of trade, including the informal and cross-border trade of northern Nigeria.
• Labour and employment law — contracts of employment, dismissal and termination, the National Industrial Court and its jurisdiction, trade unions and industrial action, occupational safety and health, informal and domestic work, migrant labour, and pensions and social security.
• Energy, environmental and natural resources law — the Petroleum Industry Act and petroleum regulation, electricity reform under the Electricity Act, renewable energy, mining and solid minerals, water law and irrigation, desertification, land degradation and climate change adaptation, pastoralism, grazing and farmer-herder conflict, environmental impact assessment, pollution, and environmental litigation and remedies.
• Intellectual property, technology and data law — copyright and its enforcement, trade marks, patents and industrial designs, data protection and privacy under the Nigeria Data Protection Act, cybercrime and electronic evidence, telecommunications and broadcasting regulation, electronic transactions and e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and the regulation of financial technology.
• International and comparative law — public international law and the implementation of treaties in Nigeria, international humanitarian law and armed conflict, international criminal law, refugee and migration law, international trade and investment law, the African Continental Free Trade Area, regional integration and ECOWAS law, the law of international organisations, conflict of laws, and the comparative study of Nigerian law against other African, common-law and Muslim-majority jurisdictions.
• Jurisprudence, legal education and the legal profession — legal theory and philosophy, Islamic legal theory, legal history including the legal history of the Sokoto Caliphate and of colonial northern Nigeria, legal pluralism and the interaction of common, customary and Islamic law, legal education and curriculum reform, professional ethics and discipline, access to justice and legal aid, clinical legal education, and arbitration, mediation and other dispute resolution under the Arbitration and Mediation Act.

METHODS: doctrinal analysis of statute, case law and subsidiary legislation; comparative study across jurisdictions; socio-legal and empirical work, including surveys, interviews and fieldwork, with a stated method and sample; case, statute and policy commentary; historical and jurisprudential analysis; and critical or systematic review of a field. Work grounded in Nigerian law, in Islamic law, and in the legal systems and lived problems of northern Nigeria is especially encouraged.

MANUSCRIPT TYPES: original research articles and review articles of not more than 8,000 words; case, statute and policy notes of not more than 4,000 words; and book reviews of not more than 2,000 words, in each case inclusive of footnotes. Manuscripts must carry an abstract of not more than 250 words and four to six keywords, use footnote citation in OSCOLA (4th edition) style — endnotes and in-text author-date citation are not accepted — be typed in Times New Roman 12 point, double-spaced, with numbered pages, and state the law as at the date of submission. Submissions must be original, not under consideration elsewhere, written in English, and are screened for plagiarism before double-blind peer review.

READERSHIP: legal academics and postgraduate researchers; judges, kadis, magistrates and court officials; legal practitioners and in-house counsel; scholars and practitioners of Islamic law; legislative drafters, regulators and policymakers, federal and state; civil society, human rights and legal aid organisations; and law teachers and students in Nigeria and across Africa.

OUT OF SCOPE: political science, sociology, economics or public administration studies of a legal or governance topic that reach no legal conclusion and engage no statute, case or legal instrument; descriptive restatements of an Act or a line of cases with no argument, critique or original contribution; papers whose governing law has been repealed, amended or superseded without acknowledging it; religious exhortation or theological argument rather than analysis of Islamic law as law; comparative pieces that set two systems side by side without drawing a conclusion from the comparison; studies of a foreign jurisdiction with no comparative bearing on Nigerian, African or Islamic law; empirical claims whose population, sample and instrument are not reported; advocacy or opinion unsupported by authority; case notes that summarise a judgment without analysing its reasoning or its consequences; and consultancy reports, teaching notes, and unrevised student projects or undergraduate long essays.