Evaluation of the adjudicatory relevance of the African Convention on Human Rights

Abstract

The African Convention on Human Rights is what gave birth to the “African Charter on Human and People’s Rights”. It is not in doubt that the major difference between the African Charter and other Charters, is that the African Charter obliges state parties to give effect to the provisions of the Charter. Thus, the Convention was intended to achieve a lot through its Charter by way of enforcement. However, despite the ratification of this Charter, human right abuses have continued unabated in Africa. Largely, apart from few states like Nigeria, the political conditions in these non-adhering states make it problematic to institute actions in national courts against state agents. This negates the spirit and purpose of the international instrument on human rights and the obligations of states to ensure its enforcement. The centrality of this paper lies in the observation that there exists a view that the perception and practice of African states on the scope and nature of human rights are not in tandem with those of the developed world. The paper thus finds that compensation is crucial to the adjudication process thus enhancing elimination of all forms of exploitations. State parties are thus required to protect rights of people by forestalling possibilities of deprivation of peace and security.

Keywords: enforceable rights, communal responsibility, fundamental liberties, generational rights, compensations