infoJustice

Author: Samuel W. Ugwumba

Abstract: The commitment to ensure access to education, particularly in developing countries, is a developmental imperative. Lack of education is life-threatening and, if there was any doubt, this is clear from the numerous studies that show a positive correlation between education and other development components.

The sad reality, however, is that available data shows a growing crisis of access to education in developing countries exacerbated by socio-economic inequalities and legal obstacles. Particularly, the regime of copyright law, as a market institution, poses challenges to the achievement of education, a non-market good and a developmental imperative. Yet, there is very little analysis in many DCs on the interface between copyright and access to education, preferring instead to see the regime of copyright on a narrow legalistic normative lens that privileges wealth-maximization and undermines the value of access to education. Nigeria is a case study.

In this paper, the approach adopted to address this crisis of access to education in DCs, and particularly in Nigeria, is a novel one in as much as it seeks to integrate the constitutional right to education with copyright. By interacting with external norms imbedded in the constitution–and given the supreme status of the constitution–copyright can yield to concerns of access to education. However, there are challenges to integrating copyright with the constitutional right to education and will be examined in this paper.

Citation: Ugwumba, Samuel W., The Case for Integrating Copyright Law With the Constitutional Right to Education in Nigeria and Developing Countries (August 2020). IDEA: The IP Law Review, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3736269