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Details the safeguarding, later arrest, and extradition of Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, for numerous counts of human rights violations. The former president's crimes were not restricted to his country, but were often directed from his safehaven in Nigeria, and also in Sierra Leone where a militia called the Revolutionary United Front terrorized citizens of that nation, often under Taylor's direction. This included the mutilation and torture of men, women and children. Listed are some of the other crimes that Taylor was responsible for, indirectly or directly, such as conscription of child soldiers and the smuggling of crude diamonds. At heart is the issue of amnesty given to many government officials, in both the Taylor case, such as under the Lome Peace Agreement, and in other such situations in Africa. S. Fullmer

Civil society actors have managed to intervene in several important cases: the prosecution of Zamani Lekwot (the retired general sentenced to death in 1993 with others of the Kataf ethnic group, later pardoned); a suit brought by two NGOs to repeal the restrictive 1993 Newspapers Decree 43; the trade unionist Frank Ovie Kokori v. General Sani Abacha (1995); the 1994 Right to Passport Case in which the Court of Appeals voided the government's seizing without cause of the passport of the head of the Civil Liberties Organization. Okafor has not sought to show the direct contributions by international human rights systems which, according to current literature, appear to be minimal. Besides the extensive accounts of the large and wealthy nations of Nigeria and South Africa, Okafor briefly examines other positive outcomes in several African Union member states.