The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights: A Five-Year Report and Assessment

Abstract

The Organization of African States (OAU) was conceived and born in 1963 in a context of nearly untrammeled state sovereignty, in which heads of states sought sedulously to safeguard the independence so recently won. Only passing mention was made in the OAU Charter of human rights. Eighteen years later, however, following a period of widely decried abuses of basic liberties in several member states, the OAU's policy-making body adopted the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (the Banjul Charter).' In late 1987 the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, created by the Banjul Charter, started to function. As the body nears its fifth anniversary, a preliminary report and assessment are in order. The armatures of human rights protections provided domestically by most African states, and regionally by the Banjul Charter, are far weaker than in Western European states, and significantly weaker than in most Western Hemisphere countries, that have ratified their respective regional conventions. That Africa has a Commission at all, therefore, may be somewhat surprising; that it confronts severe limitations on its effectiveness less so. Considering the special conditions of Africa-the lengthy, searing acquaintance with colonialism; the weakly established, often insecure organs of state government and restricted government capabilities; the perilous economic situation, particularly in the late 1980s; the heavy burdens that the poorly funded OAU Secretariat carries-the Commission has had to start its activities with several strikes against it. Furthermore, the abilities of the