From 1 June until 31 August 2022 the research group Law & Technology welcomes visiting researcher Yohannes Eneyew Ayalew. Yohannes is connected to Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia and is currently conducting PhD research at Monash Law in Australia, where he is preparing a dissertation on "Balancing the rights to freedom of expression and to privacy on the Internet under the African Human Rights System”.

On 30 June, he presented his article "Untrodden paths towards the right to privacy in the digital era under African Human Rights Law” to the members of the Human Rights Centre. In this article, Yohannes argues that that it is possible to read a right to privacy into the African Charter notwithstanding this lack of an express provision and that this offers pragmatic alternatives on the existence of the right to privacy under African human rights law. This article disentangles two untrodden paths towards realising the right to privacy on the internet in Africa: applying international law through the Charter’s flexibility clause and through developments under African human rights law as a result of subsequent agreements and practice.

During his research stay, Yohannes will collaborate with UGent researchers on topics such as children’s rights in the digital age in Africa.