Rights In Africa Research Articles

Plantations versus the people: Explaining the diversity of land policies within the tropical British Empire

Abstract Property rights regimes governing the expansion of agricultural commodity exports in the tropics have varied widely between and within colonial empires. This article illustrates this diversity within the British Empire from about 1850 to 1920. In British West Africa, indigenous customary rights were recognized and land concessions to plantations excluded. By contrast, colonial governments alienated large land tracts for plantations in Malaya, the Indian Hills and Ceylon that often conflicted with indigenous rights and shifting farming systems in upland forested areas. These differences among colonial policies on land and forest rights in turn led to quite different agrarian structures and strongly influenced the location of export production – differences that have persisted until today. The article explores a range of explanations for policy divergence with respect to land rights, including the initial conditions of population density and pre-existing industries, strategic concerns of the metropolitan power, growing civil society agitation on human rights in Africa, the role of individual champions of human rights and shifting paradigms within the empire with respect to the role of plantations.

Homosexuality: 'Unafricanness' and Vulnerability

Many anti-homosexual Africans claim that homosexuality is “unAfrican” and view advocacy by Western governments for homosexuals’ rights in Africa as cultural imperialism. The crisis of attribution regarding homosexuality has created confusion manifest in its westernization. Juxtaposed with traditional accommodation of non-conformity and diversity in African cultures, the prevailing intolerance and homophobia among many Africans was in fact introduced by missionaries who condemned traditional practices on the continent as pagan, primitive, and evil. It is puzzling how African Christians question the “Africanness” of homosexuality without questioning the “Africanness” of Christianity which was brought to Africa by Western missionaries. If homosexuality is “unAfrican” and “Western” for the reason that Western governments advocate homosexuals’ rights, why have the same Africans embraced Christianity which came to Africa through Western missionaries and is thriving in Africa decades after the continent shook off the colonial yoke? This piece critiques the claim that homosexuality is “unAfrican” arguing that anthropologists recorded it in various societies in pre-colonial Africa which renders questionable its categorical characterization as “unAfrican”. It also critiques Western interventions on homosexuality in Africa, arguing that these interventions have only served to make homosexuals in Africa more vulnerable to harassment, discrimination, and violence.

Transformative constitutionalism and the adjudication of constitutional rights in Africa

Transformative constitutionalism and the adjudication of constitutional rights in Africa

The foundations of 'peace' as a value for the promotion of human rights in Africa

The foundations of 'peace' as a value for the promotion of human rights in Africa

Sex and gender transformation in Africa

On 6 and 7 October 2016, the Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf) hosted the 2016 Annual Young Scientist Conference in partnership with the Department of Science and Technology; the South African Young Academy of Science; Gender in Science, Innovation, Technology and Engineering (GenderInSITE); and the South African Chapter of the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World. The conference explored and discussed human rights in Africa in many of its dimensions to celebrate 2016 as the 'African Year of Human Rights with Particular Focus on the Rights of Women'.

Climate change and intellectual property rights in Africa: Environmental necessity-economic opportunity

Promoting the development of clean technologies is critical in achieving a low-carbon economy in Africa. The objective of this paper is to shed more light on the role of IPRs in the efforts to mitigate climate change in Africa. This paper argues that the existing IP regime, specifically the patent system, does not necessarily preclude African countries from developing clean technologies that meet world standards. However, African countries lack capacities to adapt, develop, deploy and operate high low-carbon technologies which can give them competitive advantage in the global market. This article proposes that African countries should create an institutional set-up by which innovative strategies can easily be shared to accelerate and facilitate the development and diffusion of clean technologies. The paper concludes that unless African countries adopt appropriate policy mix to stimulate technological catch-up with rest of world in the area of clean technology development and diffusion, they will continue to lag behind and face deepening marginalization in the global economy, irrespective of the IP system regime.

Forging Paths for the African Queer: Is There an “African” Mechanism for Realizing LGBTIQ Rights?

AbstractThe African continent has struggled to accept its LGBTIQ population and queer individuals continue to struggle in pursuit of their rights. Similar refrains justifying widespread homophobia reverberate throughout the continent. This article analyses two case studies in Africa: Uganda and South Africa. Although each country treats the question of queer rights differently, arguably the treatment of the queer on a day to day basis is not dissimilar in each country. The article considers whether there is a mechanism for realizing queer rights in Africa, by appealing to the values and cultures that exist on the continent.

Recent Advances in Children’s Rights in the African Human Rights System

This case note reviews recent developments in the protection of children’s rights in Africa through the individual communications mandate of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (the Committee). It examines the recent decision of the Committee concerning the Talibés of Senegal. It argues that whilst the Committee took a commendable progressive approach in the interpretation of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, its decision lacked a gender sensitive approach which it must address in future communications.

Gender Budgeting as a Means to Implement the Maputo Protocol’s Obligations to Provide Budgetary Resources to Realise Women’s Human Rights in Africa

Articles 4(2)(i), 10(3) and 26(2) of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) impose an obligation on states to provide sufficient budgetary resources to realise women’s human rights. Despite the fact that several African countries have ratified the Maputo Protocol, there is still insufficient budgetary allocation to realise women’s human rights. This article presents gender budgeting as a step that African states can take towards the provision of sufficient resources to realise women’s human rights. It studies the concept of gender budgeting and its objectives to demonstrate the link between gender budgeting and the provision of budgetary resources to realise women’s human rights. It also studies the challenges that states face in the adoption of gender budgeting and concludes that despite the fact that there are challenges, they can be overcome if states show the required will to do so.

LGBT Rights in Africa and the Discursive Role of International Human Rights Law

Much of Africa seems to be riding on a homophobic wave that is being billed as an African resistance to Western attempts to force homosexuality on Africa. This Africanisation of homophobia is however based on false premises. Pre-colonial Africa entertained a diverse set of ways in which non-heterosexuality and non-heteronormativity were expressed and it was colonialism that introduced the now widespread religious and legal norms that policed sexuality and gender. The current wave is also based on Western anti-LGBT rights discourses and is in some part sponsored by Western/American evangelical groups. The article argues that the imposition of an African label on colonial and neocolonial products needs to be challenged without effectively replacing it with an equally Western construct. The article advocates a grassroots and ground-up approach wherein international law on LGBT rights is used for its discursive value at the societal, national and regional levels. As part of this approach, it is argued that activists should temporarily refrain from bringing LGBT cases to the African Commission since a detrimental decision, which is currently extremely likely, can cause serious and long-term problems.

CHINA AND AFRICA: HUMAN RIGHTS PERSPECTIVE

At the turn of the 21st century, China emerged as a major player in Africa’s international relations. This emergence has attracted a lot of attention in literature on what it portends for Africa. Many of the past studies have maintained that China undermines human rights in its engagements with Africa. Of important note was China’s support for the Sudanese government even in the face of human rights abuses; its unconditional aid to Angola, that have helped the government to shun accountability and transparency; its support for inhuman practices meted to the citizens of Zimbabwe by the government, among others. Against this background, this paper examined China-Africa contemporary relations from the human rights perspective. It explored, among others, China’s stance on human rights issues and the rights that China undermines in Africa. The paper argued China’s stance on human rights in Africa, and possibly internationally has a link with its domestic human rights situation. Being that human rights in China are abysmal, ordinarily China would not promote human rights in Africa more than what it does at home. The author concludes that although China may not be labelled a ‘saint’ in human rights abuses in Africa, it still cannot be labelled a ‘sinner’ in many human rights abuses by African governments.

When Rights Come Home: The Intimate Politics of Women’s Rights in Urban Uganda

Discussions of human rights in Africa often turn on a clash between western assumptions about the sovereign individual and African kin-based identities sustained through ties of reciprocity. While this framing has proved useful in troubling notions of universal rights, it has also obscured complex African engagements with contemporary rights discourse. An important step in mapping these more nuanced dynamics is examining the intimate politics of rights in everyday social interaction. Drawing on ethnographic research of long-term, intimate relationships in urban Uganda, this article shows that intricate negotiations over men’s authority and women’s agency occur in these relationships as women’s rights are remade within the local context. This article, therefore, provides much needed attention to the intimate politics of women’s rights, both in terms of how intimate relationships shape the meaning of rights as well as how rights shape intimacy in urban Africa.

Opportunities and Threats to Harmonisation of Plant Breeders' Rights in Africa: ARIPO and SADC

Africa’s plant breeders’ rights (PBRs) landscape currently consists of a few scattered national systems across the continent, and two regional regimes one under the umbrella of the Organisation Africaine de la Propriete Intellectuelle (OAPI), serving 17 mainly Francophone countries, and the other, under the African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO). The OAPI PBRs registration regime has been in place since 2006. However, the ARIPO instrument – the Arusha Protocol for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (the Arusha Protocol) –was adopted in July 2015 and according to its Article 40(3) will enter into force 12 months after at least 4 countries deposit their instruments of ratification or accession. While no such instruments had been

The African Union’s data protection Convention 2014: a possible cause for celebration of human rights in Africa?

ABSTRACTIt is now widely recognised that the unregulated processing of personal information has had a significant impact on key human rights like privacy, dignity, integrity, personality and autonomy. However, while other regions of the world have taken concerted action to protect the personal rights of individuals by adopting data protection instruments, Africa has generally lagged behind. This is so in spite of the steady growth in access to and usage of ICT and the internet which has facilitated the exploitation of individuals’ personal information with the attendant risk of infringement of their rights. An important step to change this situation was taken when African leaders in June 2014, agreed to a landmark Convention on data protection. This Convention has provoked mixed reactions from stakeholders and privacy advocates. While some are sceptical as to the effectiveness of this Convention, others have welcomed it as a cause for celebration of human rights on the continent. This paper assesses the potential impact this Convention will have on the protection of individual's personal data.

Rights away from home: Climate-induced displacement of indigenous peoples and the extraterritorial application of the Kampala Convention

Existing accounts of the relationship between human rights and climate change are not explicit regarding the link between climate change and the displacement of indigenous peoples and its implications for their rights in Africa. Even if a link exists, legal redress is problematic in that an extraterritorial conduct or omission of a state within and outside Africa may feature in climate-induced displacement. Little is known on the way forward to address this challenge. The article demonstrates how climate change is linked to the displacement of indigenous peoples and how their rights are threatened in Africa. Underscoring the extraterritorial nature of activities underlying their displacement, the article examines the basis of the Kampala Convention and the way it may be applied extraterritorially to enhance the protection of indigenous peoples facing climate-induced displacement and the threat to key rights in Africa.

United Nations - African Union Cooperation In Conflict Prevention, Peacekeeping and Peacebuildin

The article addresses the cooperation between the United Nations and regional organizations, in particular the African Union in the sphere of security and settlement of conflicts. Over the last decade the role of the AU and sub regional organizations has dramatically increased. Through its agencies of ensuring peace and security the African Union is making significant contribution to strengthening stability and promotion of democracy and human rights in Africa. In the beginning of the article authors make a review of the level of security on the African continent and stress the sharpest conflict zones. According to researches one of the most turbulent regions on continent in terms of security is the North-East Africa. Continuing quarter-century war in Somalia, conflict relations between Somalia and Ethiopia, the border crises between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which in the late 20th century turned into the war between the two countries, finally, the number of armed clashes in Sudan attracted the special attention to the region of the entire world community. Authors pay the main attention to the cooperation between the United Nations and the African Union in the sphere of settling regional conflicts and holding peacekeeping operations. In the article the main mechanisms and methods that are used by the United Nations and the African Union to hold peacekeeping operations are analyzed in details. The situation in Somalia and efforts of the United Nations and the African Union that are making towards stabilization in this country are also studied. Authors reveal the basic elements and make a review of the mixed multicomponent peacekeeping operation of the United Nations and the African Union in Sudan. In the conclusion authors stress the measures that could strengthen the strategic cooperation between the United Nations and the African union. According to the authors the most important task is to solve problems of financing joint peacekeeping operations quickly and effectively.

What is Right with Africa: The Promise of the Protocol on Women's Rights in Africa

What is Right with Africa: The Promise of the Protocol on Women's Rights in Africa

The Development of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights

During the last thirty years the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission) has decided several communications on economic, social and cultural (esc) rights protected under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter). While the Commission was initially reluctant to develop the content of these rights, it has since 2001 been developing, at an expanding pace, the scope, content and nature of state obligations under African Charter to respect, protect and fulfil esc rights. This article seeks to provide a critical analysis of the burgeoning case law concerning the development of esc rights by the African Commission and the legal impact thus far it has had on the enjoyment of esc rights in Africa, encompassing rights of hitherto marginalised and excluded individuals and groups, a topic which is relatively given less attention in the existing literature. The article examines the legal bases and content of key communications decided by the African Commission. Conclusions are then drawn concerning the reasons for the development of esc rights obligations by the African Commission and areas of potential clarification and expansion are identified.

Enhancing the role of health professionals in the advancement of adolescent sexual health and rights in Africa.

To realize adolescents' right to sexual health, state parties' implementation of the obligations stipulated under Article 14 of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa should reflect the key principles of the rights of the child, articulated under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Welfare and Rights of the Child. However, societal norms that stigmatize adolescent sexual conduct constitute barriers to adolescents' sexual health care, including their access to contraceptives to avoid unwanted pregnancies and protect themselves from STIs and HIV. States should sensitize and train health professionals to provide sexual health services and care in accordance with the principles of the rights of the child, and create enabling laws and policies to facilitate their work with adolescents.

A critical engagement? Analysing same-sex marriage discourses in To Have and to Hold: The Making of Same-Sex Marriage in South Africa (2008) – A queer perspective

The legalisation of same-sex marriage in South Africa in November 2006 made the country the exemplar for gay and lesbian rights in Africa. The advocacy of, struggle for, and finally winning the right to marry was a euphoric victory for numerous gay and lesbian people. The various steps that had to be negotiated in order to pass the Civil Union Act are documented in To Have and to Hold : The Making of Same-Sex Marriage in South Africa (2008, hereafter To Have and to Hold ). The blurb at the back of To Have and to Hold describes the book as “invaluable for understanding [the same-sex marriage] journey and its legal, social, cultural and religious ramifications”. The editors of the volume, Judge, Manion and de Waal, add that the various stakeholders that supported same-sex marriage “adequately interrogated the role and function of marriage” (Judge et al. 2008: 12). In this article, I put this claim to the test by interrogating the legal, social, cultural and religious reasons put forward in favour of same-sex marriage in To Have and to Hold . From a queer point of view, same-sex marriage is problematic because it ignores the regulatory power of the state, the fact that marriage is a public tradition, the argument that the supposed “respectability” bestowed by marriage is a farce, and the contention that legal benefits should be given to people regardless of their marital status. I use queer linguistic tools to deconstruct the claim by the editors that the text represents a “critical engagement” with same-sex marriage (Judge et al. 2008: 1). I conclude the article by showing how, rather than opening a space for the “recognition of diverse sexualities and relationship forms” (Judge et al. 2008: 12), the Civil Union Act is limited to those people who self-identify as gay or lesbian.