An Original Examination of the Transformative Potential of the Right to Development in Nigerian Public Law: From Soft Law to Justiciable Norm

The right to development, proclaimed in the UN Declaration on the Right to Development 1986 and recognised in the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, occupies an ambiguous normative status in Nigerian public law, where Chapter II socio-economic rights provisions are formally non-justiciable and the right to development has not been the subject of systematic doctrinal development by Nigerian courts. The transformative potential of the right to development as a justiciable public law norm capable of challenging development-displacing policies and holding the state accountable for development deficits has not been theoretically examined in the Nigerian context. This study develops an original theory of the right to development as a transformative justiciable norm in Nigerian public law, examining the doctrinal basis for incremental enforcement, the institutional conditions for judicial recognition, and the substantive obligations it would impose on the Nigerian state. A doctrinal and comparative methodology is applied, reviewing the African Charter's Article 22 right to development, its interpretation by the African Commission and African Court, the incremental socio-economic rights enforcement jurisprudence of South Africa's Constitutional Court, the Indian Supreme Court's right to life socio-economic extensions, and Nigerian apex court decisions from 2010 to 2023 that approach socio-economic rights enforcement. The study's original contribution is a Transformative Right to Development Framework for Nigerian Public Law applicable to other African Commonwealth jurisdictions. Findings generate a constitutional adjudication theory and draft justiciability reform legislation. Keywords: right to development, transformative constitutionalism, African Charter, justiciability, Nigeria.