Protocol to the African Charter on Human Rights Goes Into Effect
On January 25, 2004, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human Rights and Peoples’ Rights entered into force creating an African court to judge human rights violations on that continent.
Comoros paved the way for the Protocol to come into effect when it became the 15th African state to ratify the Protocol in December 2003. The other states that have ratified the Protocol since its creation in 1998 are: Algeria; Burkina-Faso; Burundi; Côte d’Ivoire; Gambia; Lesotho; Libya; Mali; Mauritius; Rwanda; Senegal; South Africa; Togo; and Uganda.
Unfortunately — as with other human rights initiatives associated with the African Charter — this is likely to be just another paper tiger. The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, for example, took six years to admonish Nigeria to respect the rights of the Ogoni people.
Proponents of the Protocol argue that the Commission’s decisions were not binding while Protocol will create a decision whose findings are binding . . . right up until the point that African nations decide to ignore them. Does anyone really believe that the same group of nations that has looked the other way at Zimbabwe’s human rights violations is suddenly going to grow a spine because 15 nations have adopted a protocol?
I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.
Sources:
African human rights court created. UN Wire, January 28, 2004.
Establishing an African Court on Human Rights. Press Release, Amnesty International, January 26, 2004.
The Protocol to the African Charter on Human Rights Goes Into Effect by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Tags: Uncategorized