Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-30T05:08:17.376Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights: mapping resistance against a young court

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 May 2018

Tom Gerald Daly  and
Micha Wiebusch
Tom Gerald Daly*
Affiliation:
MLS Fellow, Melbourne Law School, and Associate Director for Research Engagement, Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law
Micha Wiebusch
Affiliation:
Researcher (PhD), Institute of Development Policy (IOB), University of Antwerp, and SOAS, University of London, and Associate Research Fellow, United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS)
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

At first glance, it appears that the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights – the first pan-continental court of the African Union (AU) for human rights protection – epitomises the advances made by international courts in Africa in the past decade. Since its first judgment in 2009, the Court has taken a robust approach to its mandate and its docket is growing apace. However, a closer look at the overall context in which the Court operates reveals that it is susceptible to many of the patterns of resistance that have hampered other international courts in the region, which cut across the development of its authority and impact. This paper analyses the forms and patterns of resistance against the African Court and the actors involved, emphasising the additional difficulties entailed in mapping resistance to a young court compared to long-established courts, such as the European and Inter-American human rights courts.

Keywords

international human rights lawsociology of lawAfrican UnionAfrican Court on Human and Peoples' Rightsbacklash against international courts
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 14 , Special Issue 2: Resistance to International Courts , June 2018 , pp. 294 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ageno, C (2017) Rwanda will not rescind decision on African Court. The East African, 21 October. Available at http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Rwanda-will-not-rescind-decision-on-African-Court/2558-4150080-sjvnirz/index.html (accessed 19 February 2018).Google Scholar
Alter, KJ, Gathii, JT and Helfer, LR (2016 a) Backlash against international courts in West, East and Southern Africa: causes and consequences. European Journal of International Law 27, 293–328.Google Scholar
Alter, KJ, Helfer, LR and Madsen, MR (2016 b) How context shapes the authority of international courts. Law & Contemporary Problems 79, 1–36.Google Scholar
Amnesty International (2016) Malabo Protocol: legal and institutional implications of the merged and expanded African Court. Available at https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/afr01/3063/2016/en/ (accessed 20 February 2018).Google Scholar
Amnesty International (2017) Setting the Scene for Elections: Two Decades of Silencing Dissent in Rwanda. Available at https://reliefweb.int/report/rwanda/setting-scene-elections-two-decades-silencing-dissent-rwanda-0 (accessed 20 February 2018).Google Scholar
Bekker, G (2013) The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and remedies for human rights violations. Human Rights Law Review 13, 499–528.Google Scholar
Cole, RJV (2010) The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights: will political stereotypes form an obstacle to the enforcement of its decisions? The Comparative and International Law Journal of Southern Africa 43, 23–45.Google Scholar
Dinokopila, RB (2017) The impact of regional and sub-regional courts and tribunals on constitutional adjudication in Africa. In Fombad, CM (ed.), Constitutional Adjudication in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 236.Google Scholar
Economist Intelligence Unit, The (EIU) (2017) Democracy Index 2017: free speech under attack. Available at http://bit.ly/2npCore (accessed 19 February 2018).Google Scholar
Freedom House (2016) Freedom in the world: anxious dictators, wavering democracies: global freedom under pressure. Available at https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/FH_FITW_Report_2016.pdf (accessed 20 February 2018).Google Scholar
Freedom House (2018) Freedom in the world: democracy in crisis. Available at https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2018 (accessed 20 February 2018).Google Scholar
Gebre, S (2017) Kenyan president slams election annulment as ‘judicial coup’, Bloomberg Politics, 21 September. Available at https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-21/kenyan-president-suggests-vote-date-may-change-as-ruling-slammed (accessed 19 February 2018).Google Scholar
Human Rights Watch (2018) Rwanda: events of 2017, World Report 2018. Available at https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2018/country-chapters/rwanda (accessed 19 February 2018).Google Scholar
International Federation For Human Rights (Fidh) (2010) Practical Guide: The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights: Toward the African Court of Justice and Human Rights. Available at https://www.fidh.org/en/international-advocacy/african-union/African-Court-on-Human-and-Peoples-Rights/FIDH-Practical-Guide-on-the-African-Court-on-Human-and-Peoples-Rights-2067 (accessed 19 February 2018).Google Scholar
Kagame, P (2017) The imperative to strength our union: report on the proposed recommendations for the institutional reform of the African union, African Union, 29 January. Available at http://bit.ly/2EPBsUn (accessed 20 February 2018).Google Scholar
Kane, I and Motala, AC (2009) Creation of a new court of justice and human rights. In Evans, M and Murray, R (eds), The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights: The System in Practice 1986–2006. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 406–440.Google Scholar
Killander, M and Adjolohoun, H (2010) International law and domestic human rights litigation in Africa: an introduction. In Killander, M (ed.), International Law and Domestic Human Rights Litigation in Africa. Pretoria: Pretoria University Law Press, 3–22.Google Scholar
Kwibuka, E (2017) Why Rwanda withdrew from AU rights court declaration, The New Times, 13 October. Available at http://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/221701/ (accessed 20 February 2018).Google Scholar
Madsen, MR, Cebulak, P and Wiebusch, M (2018) Backlash against international courts: explaining the forms and patterns of resistance to international courts. International Journal of Law in Context 14, 5–28.Google Scholar
Mälksoo, L (2016) Russia's constitutional court defies the European Court of Human Rights: Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation Judgment of 14 July 2015, no. 21-П/2015. European Constitutional Law Review 12, 377–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mbelle, N (2009) The role of non-governmental organisations and national human rights institutions at the African Commission. In Evans, M and Murray, R (eds), The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights: The System in Practice 1986–2006. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 289–315.Google Scholar
Murray, R and Long, D (eds) (2015) The Implementation of the Findings of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Musau, N (2018) Kenya gives nod to creation of African version of ICC, Standard Media, 5 February. Available at http://bit.ly/2sbSBVP (accessed 19 February 2018).Google Scholar
Nmehielle, VO (2014) Saddling the new African regional human rights court with international criminal jurisdiction: innovative, obstructive, expedient. African Journal of Legal Studies 7, 7–42.Google Scholar
Polymenopoulou, E (2012) African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights v. Great Socialist Peoples’ Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Order for Provisional Measures 25 March 2011. International and Comparative Law Quarterly 61, 767–775.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Possi, A (2017) It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer: the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and fair trial rights in Tanzania. African Human Rights Yearbook 1, 311–336.Google Scholar
Reyntjens, F (2013) Political Governance in Post-Genocide Rwanda. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Roesch, R (2017) The Ogiek case of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights: not so much news after all? EJIL: Talk!, 26 June. Available at http://bit.ly/2E3yNoT (accessed 19 February 2018).Google Scholar
Sandoval, CAV and Veçoso, FFC (2017) A human rights’ tale of competing narratives. Revista Direito e Práxis 8, 1603–1651.Google Scholar
Ssenyonjo, M (2013) Direct access to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights by individuals and non-governmental organisations: an overview of the emerging jurisprudence of the African Court 2008–2012. International Human Rights Law Review 2, 17–56.Google Scholar
Viljoen, F (2012) International Human Rights Law in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Windridge, O (2015) A watershed case for African human rights: Mtikila and others v. Tanzania, Oxford Human Rights Hub, 17 February. Available at http://bit.ly/2CwQUSO (accessed 20 February 2018).Google Scholar
Windridge, O (2017) An emerging framework for all of Africa: the right to a fair trial at the African Court, The ACtHPR Monitor, 7 November. Available at http://bit.ly/2ENigXv (accessed 19 February 2018).Google Scholar