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Policing and Preventing Human Right Abuses in Africa: The OAU, the AU & the NEPAD Peer Review

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2019

John Akokpari
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Extract

In spite of being signatories to the United Nations Charter and the African Charter on Rights, human rights abuses are rife in African countries. The democratic wave that swept across Africa in the early 1990s and witnessed the demise of many authoritarian regimes only minimised the practice of human rights violations; it did not abate it. There are still reports of opposition activists being jailed without trial for daring to seek level playing fields in politics; journalists being detained or sometimes forced into exile for daring to expose corruption in high places; academics being threatened with arrests for daring to write about mis-governance; workers being dismissed for attempting to unionise or to ask for better remuneration in the face of currency devaluations and inflation. There are countless instances of gross human right abuses, which cannot be recounted here because of time constraints. In some instances, the state has completely failed to promote peace, welfare and private property. Perhaps it is appropriate to describe these states as “failed states.” They are failed states because in spite of maintaining law and order, they are unable to perform their traditional functions, including the protection of human rights.

Type
Proceedings
Information
International Journal of Legal Information , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , Summer 2004 , pp. 461 - 473
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the International Association of Law Libraries. 

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