Vive La Diversité or Aluta Continua? Achieving Gender Equity on the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights

Abstract

Globally, while some courts at the domestic level have made varied progress in achieving sex balanced benches, many hurdles remain in changing the sex composition of international judiciaries. While women make up less than 20% of international benches, recent scholarship has shown that women from one region of the world — namely the continent of Africa, have been well represented on international benches. Notwithstanding the gains made across Africa, there is still scant scholarly attention paid to the issue of women judges across Africa, both at the domestic and international levels. In this article, I take up the task of situating scholarly discussions on women and international courts within the African context. This article explores two interrelated questions; first, how did the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR) achieve a sex balanced bench within the first 13 years of its existence? Second, how can the record of the ACtHPR be replicated in other regional courts? This paper explores these questions within the context of the ACtHPR, an African regional court based in Arusha, Tanzania.