Towards Improved Compliance with Human Rights Decisions in the African Human Rights System: Enhancing the Role of Civil
- PDF / 390,329 Bytes
- 22 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 73 Downloads / 266 Views
Towards Improved Compliance with Human Rights Decisions in the African Human Rights System: Enhancing the Role of Civil Society Anthony Ebruphihor Etuvoata 1 # Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract To ensure the protection and promotion of human rights at the African regional level, the African human rights system was established and has been in existence for over three decades. In realisation of its mandates, three supervisory mechanisms have been established to adjudicate human rights cases and issue decisions accordingly. To enhance compliance with these decisions, human rights non-governmental organisations, civil society organisations (NGOs/CSOs) and the supervisory bodies themselves often act as sources of pressure by exploring different follow-up mechanisms. However, despite their best efforts, the attitude of member states towards compliance with the decisions of the supervisory bodies has been relatively poor. Against this background, this article argues that in improving compliance, civil society— particularly the electorates—in member states can equally be engaged to act as a complementary domestic source of pressure with the aim of raising domestic costs in pressuring member states towards compliance. Keywords African human rights system . Compliance . African regional supervisory
mechanisms . Human rights NGOs and CSOs . Wider civil society . Electorates
Introduction Similar to the practices in the European and Inter-American human rights systems, legal protection of human rights has taken a firm stand on the African continent. As * Anthony Ebruphihor Etuvoata [email protected]
1
University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa
A. E. Etuvoata
evidence of this, the African human rights system (AHRS) has existed for over three decades under the aegis of the former Organisation of African Unity (OAU)1 now the African Union (AU). As one scholar noted ‘The AHRS comes, in a manner of speaking, as a self contained human rights system with its own central normative instrument and its own set of supervisory mechanisms’ (Ebobrah 2019, p.1–13). This assertion is based on the fact that the system’s normative framework is provided by the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Charter) and other related instruments.2 The Charter in article 30 established the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Commission) with the responsibility to promote and protect human rights in Africa. Owing to claims that the effectiveness of the AHRS was restricted by the absence of a judicial organ, the AU member states adopted a Protocol to the African Charter establishing an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Court). The Court is established to ‘complement’ the protective mandate of the Commission. Currently, the AU has three major dedicated supervisory mechanisms for the protection and promotion of human rights on the continent: the Commission, the Court and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (Committee) (Heyns and Killander 2013; Viljoen 2012, pp. 289–410). Since
Data Loading...
