The Constitutional Status of International Human Rights Treaties in Nigerian Law: Towards Doctrinal Clarity

The relationship between international human rights treaty obligations and domestic Nigerian law is characterised by doctrinal ambiguity that has generated significant scholarly debate and judicial inconsistency. The dualist framework of the 1999 Constitution, requiring legislative incorporation of treaties before their domestic application, stands in tension with the growing body of Nigerian jurisprudence that draws on unincorporated treaty provisions in rights adjudication. This doctoral research develops an original doctrinal framework clarifying the constitutional status of international human rights treaties in Nigerian law, making a foundational scholarly contribution to the interface of international law and Nigerian constitutional law. An extended doctrinal methodology is employed, combining systematic analysis of all identifiable Supreme Court and Court of Appeal decisions engaging with international human rights instruments from 1999 to 2024 with normative theoretical analysis drawing on Kelsen, Hart, and African international law scholarship. Comparative analysis examines constitutional treaty incorporation approaches from South Africa, Ghana, and Uganda. Primary data was gathered through interviews with international law scholars, Federal Ministry of Justice legal advisers, and human rights litigation practitioners. Secondary sources include international law scholarship, constitutional law texts, and human rights jurisprudence from 2015 to 2024. The research makes three original scholarly contributions: a systematic empirical mapping of treaty invocation patterns in Nigerian courts; an original Constitutional Treaty Integration Theory for Nigeria; and proposed constitutional amendment language establishing a hierarchy of treaty incorporation and judicial application standards. Keywords: international human rights treaties, constitutional law, dualism, treaty incorporation, Nigeria.