The African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance: Past, Present and Future

Micha Wiebusch,Lutz Oette,Stef Vandeginste,Chika Charles Aniekwe

doi:10.1017/s002185531900007x

Abstract

AbstractThis article traces a genealogy of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG) and examines the charter's overall implementation. While there has always been a struggle between competing views of how to ensure more or less continental accountability for norms related to democratic governance in Africa, enforcement by the African Union (AU) has definitively become more robust since the ACDEG's adoption. The article argues that this development is observable in three trends: continental legalization, technocratization and judicialization of politics. It evaluates the growth of normative commitments in the field of democracy, elections and governance and their increasing consolidation into binding legal treaties; explores the increasing reliance on AU technical assistance in the implementation and interpretation of these instruments; and assesses the expanding role of continental and regional judicial bodies in enforcing commitments to democracy. Building upon a better understanding of these trends, the article identifies key contextual factors that will shape the ACDEG's future implementation.

Highlights

Contrary to customarily bleak accounts, Africa has undergone significant changes that have resulted in improvements in its governance landscape over the past decade.[1]
While there has always been a struggle between competing views of how to ensure more or less continental accountability for norms related to democratic governance in Africa, enforcement by the African Union (AU) has definitively become more robust since the ACDEG’s adoption
A whole set of techniques can be deployed to appeal for signature, ratification and implementation, routinely pronounced by AU policy organs and governance monitoring mechanisms (including the Assembly, Executive Council, Peace and Security Council (PSC), African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and AU Election Observation Missions (AUEOMs))

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Contrary to customarily bleak accounts, Africa has undergone significant changes that have resulted in improvements in its governance landscape over the past decade.[1]. Conflicting perspectives on this issue are part and parcel of the organization’s history, nature and purpose They lay at the heart of the establishment of the organization in the early 1960s,14 and remained present throughout its institutional development into the AU15 and the various attempts to reconfigure the workings of the AU.[16] The ACDEG can be described as yet another manifestation of the struggle between continuously evolving views of how to ensure more or less continental accountability for certain commitments to a particular socio-political order, namely, in this particular case, a liberal democratic order.[17]. 13 See ACDEG, art 52, which provides: “None of the provisions of the present Charter shall affect more favourable provisions [contained] in national legislation [or other applicable] regional, continental or international conventions.”

14 K van Walraven Dreams of Power

28 F Viljoen “The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights

Findings

CONCLUSION