Indigenousness, Human Security and Empowerment of Marginalized Identities in Africa

Abstract

The legal and institutional framework for protection of individuals and groups in Africa—as elsewhere—has undergone numerous changes in both principle and practice. The said-changes were products of a dynamic history, a readjustment of philosophical precepts or geopolitical dictates. Some of the said-changes might have been local in nature, but most of them were dictated by global realities and discourses. Since the adoption, by the United Nations, of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, this body of law has somehow served as the dominant legal framework and discourse advocating for the protection of individuals and groups against all forms of threats, mainly from the state. However, dominance of the language of human rights law as the guarantor of human life and liberty tends to overshadow the fact that this legal framework is only a few decades old. Before and since the institutionalization of the human rights legal framework, other concepts were and are still used as grounds or justifications for protection of individuals and collectives.