African Human Rights Law (18)
The Constitutive Act establishing the AU, which entered into force in May 2001, features human-rights issues prominently in the preamble in contrast to the OAU Charter, “the inclusion of human rights, the objectives and guiding principles of the Act is an important step toward anchoring human rights in the AU.…
A Committee of Experts (Art. 32 of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child 1990) monitors the Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. The first meeting of the Committee was held in 2002. It has a broad mandate to promote and protect the…
The African Commission is the only organ specially created in 1981 for the purpose of verifying the implementation of the African Charter. Article 30 of the African Charter established the African Commission as an organ of the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Although very much geared to promoting human and…
The concepts of minorities and indigenous peoples are controversial under international law and politics. The very difficulty arises from identifying with precision those people falling under the two categories and the extent of the rights and level of protection to be claimed. Owing to the difficulties surrounding the two notions,…
Refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are other vulnerable groups deserving some protective regimes. This is because in the first case being outside the territory of their country, they are unable or unwilling to receive the protection from their national states, while in the second, even if within territorial limit…
Sexual (gender) inequality is a global reality. Women as part of human being are entitled to benefits and protections under the general human rights instruments (both UN and regional) such as the equality and non-discrimination clauses, and other fundamental guarantees. However, the reality has been otherwise. Women have been subjected…
With some 44 percent of its population under the age of 15, the adage that ‘children are the future’ rings more true in Africa than anywhere else. The protection of children’s rights is not only an investment in the future, but also an imperative of the present, which is characterized…
The African Charter broke new grounds by enacting duties in a more elaborated and meaningful fashion than any other binding human rights instrument. The duty provisions of the African Charter aimed at the individual are found in articles 27 to 29. According to Article 27: Every individual shall have towards…
KIWANUKA, RN (1988) 82 American Journal of international Law 80 … Human rights vs Peoples’ The full title of the Banjul Charter raises the controversial question of the difference and relationship between (individual) human rights and (collective) peoples’ rights. The relationship between the two must clearly be appreciated to avoid…
One unique aspect of the African Charter is its inclusion of group, collective or peoples’ rights as distinct rights in addition to civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights. The notion of peoples’ rights seems controversial, and raises a number of questions in the minds of international…
AGBAKWA, SC ‘RECLAIMING HUMANITY: (2002) 5 Yale Human Rights and Development Law Journal 177 A point very often missed in human rights praxis is that economic, social and cultural rights (ESC) ‘are the only means of self-defense for millions of impoverished and marginalized individuals and groups all over the world’.…
The Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Unlike other international and regional human rights instruments, the African Charter spearheaded the holistic approach to human rights by including civil and political rights and economic, social cultural rights in a single human rights document. In addition, the preamble to the Charter clearly demonstrates…
The Civil and Political Rights in African Charter The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights guarantees virtually all the established civil and political rights referred to by Karel Vasak as “the first generation of rights’. Generational classification of rights must not be understood to mean that the earlier generation…
Rights Guaranteed under African Charter In considering the African charter, one’s attention is easily captured by its more unusual aspects: the concept of ‘peoples’ rights’ and individual and state ‘duties’, and the inclusion of all three ‘generations’ of rights in the same supranational human rights instruments. Nonetheless, it should also…