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Abstract
The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights in recent years has put in place various measures to monitor the implementation of its decisions on individual communications. These include a series of panels and seminars, amendments to its Rules of Procedure, extending the mandate of its Working Group on Communications, clarifying more expressly roles for national human rights institutions and civil society organisations, and calling on states to establish focal points and other procedures at the national level. This article considers the effectiveness of these measures and critically evaluates the role of the African Commission in monitoring the implementation of its decisions. The article draws on the findings of a four-year research project conducted by the University of Bristol's Human Rights Implementation Centre, in collaboration with the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria; the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex; and the Middlesex University. This project tracked the implementation of selected decisions on individual communications, from the regional and UN human rights bodies, against nine countries from Africa, the Americas and Europe. These decisions were used as case studies to identify and examine the processes in place at the national, regional and international levels, to monitor and facilitate implementation. Among the themes explored was an examination of the extent to which there may be a difference in the discourse and behaviour of various domestic actors depending on which body issued the decision. In relation to decisions of the African Commission, this research identified that while there has been increased attention paid by the Commission to the issue of monitoring the implementation of its decisions, it nevertheless lacks strategic direction and there is a risk that the momentum and opportunities created by these initiatives will be lost without further strategic and institutional development by the Commission to clarify its role.
Highlights
When the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter) entered into force and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission) started operating in the late 1980s, it was considered pioneering that this new quasi-judicial body was even willing to pronounce on complaints from individuals or organisations alleging violations of the African Charter’s provisions
Over the years the African Commission moved from interpreting the African Charter as providing it with the mandate to decide on complaints submitted by individuals and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), initially adopting decisions of only one or two paragraphs in length, to increasingly lengthy decisions that often list detailed reparations that the state authorities must take to remedy the violations found
The Commission can, and does, undertake a range of roles in the monitoring its own decisions, whether this is gathering information; reporting on the measures taken; engaging in dialogue with the parties; interpretation and technical assistance; assessment; coordination; or enforcement,[16] as this article argues, our research found that the African Commission is not using these approaches systematically or fully
Summary
When the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter) entered into force and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission) started operating in the late 1980s, it was considered pioneering that this new quasi-judicial body was even willing to pronounce on complaints from individuals or organisations alleging violations of the African Charter’s provisions. With the African Commission for a long time having been criticised for its ineffectiveness, one of the reasons for the creation of the African Court was the hope that binding judgments from a continental judicial body would be more likely to be complied with than the perceived ‘non-binding’ decisions from the African Commission.[4]. While this has not been proved correct, and research has demonstrated that factors other than the legal status of a decision or judgment are more significant in determining levels of implementation,[5] this adds a further dimension to how the Commission should define its role. There is a school of thought that ‘enforcement’ through processes and clear consequences are more likely to result in implementation
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