Africa and the Shaping of International Human Rights, by Derrick M. Nault

Abstract

Derrick Nault offers multiple perspectives on the historical role of Africa in shaping international human rights under the aegis of the United Nations (UN). He addresses governments, groups, and individuals who contributed purposefully or inadvertently to human rights campaigns and institutions, as well as those who violated current human rights standards. Whether positively or negatively, he posits, all shaped human rights as we know them today. The book moves chronologically through five chapters, beginning with the international controversy over the Congo Free State at the turn of the twentieth century and concluding with the work of the International Criminal Court (ICC), predominantly focused on Africa, in the present century. Nault proposes to depart from the mainstream of human rights history, which he characterises as Eurocentric. It is important to note that Nault does not treat Eurocentrism as a cultural construct, but as the focus upon Europe as a geopolitical region. In contrast, Nault shows how the peoples of Africa effectively ‘influenced the trajectory of human rights history in unexpected, intriguing, and, ultimately, critical ways’ (p. 6).