The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) was the first non-Western declaration of human rights. This book, for the first time, presents a comprehensive account of the development of the ACHPR, key to a proper understanding of its fundamental nature. Volume 1 outlines the dominant African political and cultural ideas upon which the OAU (now African Union) was founded. Volume 2 describes the process through which the ACHPR came into being.

The African human rights system has undergone some remarkable developments since the adoption of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, the cornerstone of the African human rights system, in June 1981. The year2011 marked the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the African Charter. It also marked 25 years since the African Charter entered into force on 21 October 1986.This book aims to provide reflections on most of the major human rights issues in the past 30 years of the African human rights system in practice and discussion on the future: the African Charter s impact and contribution to the respect, protection and promotion of human rights in Africa; the contemporary challenges faced by the African Human rights system in responding adequately to the demands of rapidly evolving African societies; and how the African human rights system can be strengthened in the future to ensure that the human rights protected in the African Charter, as developed in the jurisprudence of the African Commission since the Commission was inaugurated in 1987, are realised in practice.The chapters in this volume bring together the work of 20 human rights scholars and practitioners, with expertise in human rights in Africa, under the following general themes: rights and duties in the African Charter; rights of the vulnerable under the African system; implementation mechanisms for human rights in Africa; and towards an effective African regional human rights system.

This volume analyses the prospects and challenges of the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples' Rights in context. The book is for all readers interested in African institutions and contemporary global challenges of peace, security, human rights, and international law. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

7 Closing the Circle

The role and influence human rights in society has been enhanced by its association with international law and yet despite this legal springboard, the scope of its legal nature remains uncertain. By analysing the work of international human rights courts and treaty bodies alongside a brief historical review, this book assesses the distinctive legal dimension of human rights. It concludes that the legalisation of human rights is an unplanned and evolving social construct that continues under the managerial oversight of international human rights courts and treaty bodies which employ the primary tool of treaty interpretation. These characteristics of the legal environment of human rights in international law provide a good appreciation of the law itself and its limits.

At specific moments in the history of Africa, Europe, and Latin America, each region decided to create supranational jurisdictions to protect human rights. These are, in chronological order, the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. While each has been the subject of important, dedicated monographs, no major study has analysed both the institutional and jurisprudential issues of all three regional systems. The 3 Regional Human Rights Courts in Context: Justice That Cannot Be Taken for Granted is the first book to offer a comprehensive comparison of the three systems. Rather than merely juxtaposing analogous features, the book considers how the three courts operate as parts of a greater, integrated whole. Similarities and differences between the courts are illuminated alongside historical, political, and sociological insights, in addition to the book's primary legal focus. Close analysis of the processes by which the courts came into being makes it clear that, regardless of distinct political, cultural, or other variances, states on each of the three continents have chafed against international supervision. The book also debunks the common belief that, after the Second World War, the thrust of human rights initiatives was so powerful that states no longer need to discuss them. Justice cannot be taken for granted—a position further supported by the book's analysis of how each court has evolved and how their rulings have been implemented. Laurence Burgorgue-Larsen's dynamism and multidisciplinary approach makes it possible to truly understand the stakes behind the institutional and jurisprudential developments of the three regional human rights courts. This is a book that will interest not only legal practitioners but also specialists in international relations, human rights, and countless other fields.

This book offers the first comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the provisions of the ‘Malabo Protocol’—the amendment protocol to the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights—adopted by the African Union at its 2014 Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. The Annex to the protocol, once it has received the required number of ratifications, will create a new Section in the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights with jurisdiction over international and transnational crimes, hence an ‘African Criminal Court’. In this book, leading experts in the field of international criminal law analyze the main provisions of the Annex to the Malabo Protocol. The book provides an essential and topical source of information for scholars, practitioners and students in the field of international criminal law, and for all readers with an interest in political science and African studies. Gerhard Werle is Professor of German and Internationa l Crimina l Law, Criminal Procedure and Modern Legal History at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Director of the South African-German Centre for Transnational Criminal Justice. In addition, he is an Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape and Honorary Professor at North-West University of Political Science and Law (Xi’an, China). Moritz Vormbaum received his doctoral degree in criminal law from the University of Münster (Germany) and his postdoctoral degree from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. He is a Senior Researcher at Humboldt-Universität, as well as a coordinator and lecturer at the South African-German Centre for Transnational Criminal Justice.