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ENFORCEMENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN AFRICA- A CASE STUDY OF THE AFRICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights was set up pursuant to the coming into force of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, saddled with the responsibilities of promoting and enforcing the rights of the African people and further checkmating human rights breaches amongst its member states. This paper will contend that the commission while performing its duties is faced with numerous challenges and setbacks which tend to dissuade it, and which have in fact, hindered the effective actualization of the intendments of the African Charter and the expectations of the African people. A further detailed juxtaposition of the African system with its international counterpart is done which would serve as a benchmark in evaluating the achievements of the African Commission while enforcing human rights in the region in line with international standard and best practice.
Africa and the Global Human Rights Agenda: The African Group at the UN Human Rights Council
2014
This policy briefing examines the behaviour of African countries in country-specific situations at the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), focusing specifically on developments and examples that occurred between July 2010 and July 2014. Africa is the region with the largest number of seats on the HRC. It is also one of the most organised. However, an analysis of its members’ behaviour shows that there is a diversity of approaches within the group, which does not react consistently when addressing situations of grave human rights violations on the continent or in other parts of the world.
UNDERSTANDING THE EVOLUTION OF THE AFRICAN HUMAN RIGHTS SYSTEM AND MECHANISMS
The concept of human rights is at the centre of Africa's contemporary jurisprudence and has steadily become a much talked about topic in modern times in various countries. There are lots of debates on a daily basis from every end of the continent in local and international platforms about human rights and as it stands, and no country wants to be left behind in the debate. However, the big question is whether the debates produce effective results aimed at the respect and promotion of human rights in general or at best whether or not these countries conform to the human rights standards and norms. The fathers of Africa had envisaged a continent where peace, unity, solidarity and fraternity would bind the common purpose of the African man and that is why, they collectively decided to come up with the idea of having one body that will achieve these ideals. They formed the Organization of African Unity which was later became known as the African union (AU). The African Union was established by Article 2 of the Constitutive Act of the African Union with a specific aim of promoting peace and security in Africa1. The AU is comprised of 55 countries of Africa with Morocco being the last to join in June of 2017. In order to achieve these ideals, the constitutive act, goes further to create three specific organs within the union such as; the Assembly of Heads of State, the African Union Secretariat and the Executive council. These three organs have specific mandates as such; the AU Assembly is the supreme organ of the union comprised of heads of state of all member states charged with the mandate of overseeing the functioning of the organization. The AU Secretariat has the mandate to operate as secretariat of the AU based in Addis Ababa Ethiopia while the Executive council is charged with making decisions concerning policies that are of interest among member states of the African Union. The act equally guarantees human rights2 in the continent and that is why the union came up with the idea of having a charter which went further, to establish an independent judicial institution from the AU per se. The institution was established to hear matters of human rights violations committed within member states called the African commission on 1 The Constitutive Act of the AU available in http://www.achpr.org/instruments/au-constitutive-act/#3 2 Per Article 3 (a) of the Constitutive Act of the AU " The objectives of the union shall be to : …Promote and protect human and peoples' rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and other relevant human rights instruments "
Impact of Human Rights Report on African State Foreign Policy
It is notable that Human rights constitute fundamental needs of human beings' survival. The existence of human rights organizations is one of the steps in the right direction to ensure these rights are protected from violation, enhanced, and enshrined in each state's constitutions. The International Human Rights bodies and Local chapters of Human Rights Organizations in different states should promote advocacies of these rights in enhancing coexistence among the citizens themselves, vis-à-vis the citizens and the state. Basing on the divine nature of any state in the field of International Relations and Diplomacy, it is therefore basic that the responsibility of any state can be measurable to the level at which it exercises the practice of human rights. On the basis of the core role of a state to human rights practice, the impact of International Human Rights Organizations' reports can either portray the understanding of a state on the 'coin scale' towards its foreign relations. Using the African states, this paper will address how the reports of International Human Rights Organizations have helped shape their foreign relations.
African Journal of Legal Studies
The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights ushered in an era of human rights promotion and protection at the regional level. However, the African Commission, created for this purpose, continues to face challenges especially with regard to the protection of human rights. This article critically examines one of the core obstacles to the effective operation of the Commission’s protective mandate – the binding nature of its recommendations – and formulates a proposal for bypassing that obstacle. It argues for the strengthening of the Commission’s protective mandate through a distinct and unambivalent adoption of the Commission’s rulings as official decisions of the AU Assembly backed by the concomitant full sanctioning power of the latter. Such adoption, it is argued, must go beyond the current near ceremonious practice whereby the Assembly receives and ‘adopts’ the Commission’s Activity Reports and focus on the recommendations themselves. Adopting this new system, it is argued, w...
In recent years, Africa has seen a new wave of democratization. There has been a substantive shift from unconstitutional rule through coups, military rule and authoritarian regimes to a more democratic rule that involves popular participation. Elections have served as a tool to institutionalize and entrench democracy in African states. However elections in several African countries have been marked by challenges including contestation of electoral results and post-election violence as witnessed in Kenya in 2007, Zimbabwe in 2008, and Ivory Coast in 2010. The African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG) adopted by the African Union (AU) in 2007 is intended to serve as a crucial framework to mitigate some of these challenges. In 2013, the AU suspended Egypt from all the activities of the organization in the aftermath of a coup in the country. In 2015, the AU declined to observe local and parliamentary and presidential elections in Burundi when a preliminary assessment by the African Union Commission (AUC) revealed that the country lacked a conducive environment to hold free, fair and credible elections. It is on this premise that this paper seeks to examine how the ACDEG promotes compliance of states to democratic principles as well as to Article 13 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) which provides for citizens’ free participation in their governance. The paper explores the impact of ratification of the African Democracy Charter on the democratization of African States. Furthermore, the paper expounds on the roles of the AU institutions in addressing violations of fundamental rights necessary for democracy. The paper proposes ways to increase compliance and ratification of the African democracy charter as well as identifies shortcomings of the charter.
Impact of Human Rights Organizations Reports in Shaping African States Foreign Relations
Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 2013
It is notable that Human rights constitute fundamental needs of human beings' survival. The existence of human rights organizations is one of the steps in the right direction to ensure these rights are protected from violation, enhanced, and enshrined in each state's constitutions. The International Human Rights bodies and Local chapters of Human Rights Organizations in different states should promote advocacies of these rights in enhancing coexistence among the citizens themselves, vis-à-vis the citizens and the state. Basing on the divine nature of any state in the field of International Relations and Diplomacy, it is therefore basic that the responsibility of any state can be measurable to the level at which it exercises the practice of human rights. On the basis of the core role of a state to human rights practice, the impact of International Human Rights Organizations' reports can either portray the understanding of a state on the 'coin scale' towards its foreign relations. Using the African states, this paper will address how the reports of International Human Rights Organizations have helped shape their foreign relations.
The African Union’s Non-Indifference Stance to Human Rights Challenges: Lessons from Sudan and Libya
The legal and policy documents of the African Union (AU) are founded on a human security paradigm that obliges the continental body to maintain a non-indifference stance on human rights abuses. This doctrine of non-indifference departs from the state-centric security principle of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which gave excessive privileges to state elites. Although the AU has intervened to address security challenges in the continent, misgivings persist that the continental body’s interventions continually favor state regimes at the expense of the human rights of ordinary citizens. Adducing the cases of the AU’s responses to the conflicts in Sudan (2004–07) and Libya (2011), this article examines the credibility of the AU’s non-indifference stance to gross human rights violations. The study contends that the undue influence of state regimes on the AU’s initiatives as well as its limited capacity for intervention raise doubts on the continental body’s purported transition from a state-centric framework to a human security paradigm.