African Solidarity And The Promotion And Protection Of Human Rights In Africa

This article focuses on how the principle of solidarity between African States has impacted on the promotion and protection of human rights, starting from the founding of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963.

According to Williams (2010), solidarity describes the relationship or dynamics within a community, and the commitment towards cooperation, support and (re)distribution so as to ensure that less fortunate members of the community are provided for.

On the flipside, OHCHR (2014) defined human rights as 'rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.' Human rights as a legal concept emerged relatively late in Africa.

Since its establishment, the OAU now AU was obsessed with promoting and protecting the human rights of the citizens of its member states, as indicated by its violent efforts to get African countries free from colonisation and the right to sovereignty and self-determination. After all, colonialism had no respect for the human rights of colonised people; the people of Africa endured much suffering due to years of gross human rights abuses. As such, they used their struggle to revealed these abuses and struggle for their freedom.

In furtherance to this, the AU in contrast, made human rights clearly part of its mandate, as embodied in its Constitutive Act, and recognized human rights in all its activities and programmes. This collective voice asserted tremendous influence in the evolution of the continent's human rights architecture.

Moreover, the adoption of the African Union's Constitutive Act also maintained Africa's commitment to promote and protect human rights because it placed human rights firmly on the African agenda. According to Murray (2004), the Act, adopted in 2000, marked a major shift from the OAU Charter by moving from non-interference to non-indifference, including the right of the AU to intervene in any member state's affairs; explicit recognition of human rights and gender equality.

Also, the New Partnership for Africa's Development also firmly put human rights at the nucleus of development and this buttressed and advanced the socio-economic and cultural rights within Africa. These two important developments originating from the solidarity between African states have extended and deepened Africa's commitment to human rights, democracy and governance over the years.

Furthermore, due to the efficacy of human rights, the solidarity between African states has broadened human rights issues which are evidenced by the increasing number of conferences, meetings, declarations and resolutions adopted pertaining to human rights by the African Union and sub-regional bodies especially the ECOWAS. In addition, human rights mechanisms such as the African Charter on Human and People's Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women, the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and the establishment of the African Court on Human and People's Rights have positively transformed and strengthened the instruments that promote and protect human rights in Africa.

In effectively enforcing these instruments, the various bodies that are established have tremendously deepened and sharpened the administration, promotion and protection of human rights on the continent making national and local human rights agencies people-driven, people-oriented and people-serving public institutions.

Again, the transformation of the OAU to AU has brought about huge potential for human rights to play a greater part in multilateralism on the continent. As the AU persists to embrace human rights mechanisms and build up existing institutions or set up new ones for their implementation, it has improved the African human rights protection system and created a conducive environment to pursue human rights promotion vigorously. The AU has also clearly safeguarded that human rights are recognized throughout its organs, activities and programmes.

In light of the foregoing developments, it has become noticeable that the solidarity between African states has made a lot of impacts by disposing a large range of tools that make possible the effective promotion and protection of human rights on the continent. Of significant relevance is the establishment of the African Court on Human Rights which really is a step forward to this end.

In remarks to this, the then UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, expressed during his address to the AU Summit in 2006 as: “the African Union itself is in many ways the most eloquent testimony of progress, in development, in security, in human rights - the three interlinked pillars on which the human family must build its future; an institution, which was created only six years ago, has established itself as a defining voice in each one of those areas.” However, the African system of human rights protection has its own weakness. There is still a lot to do to improve the mechanisms and to rectify some of its shortcomings.

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Annan, K. 2006. Address to the AU Summit in Banjul, the Gambia. Available at www.africa.union.org; last accessed 7 April 2009.

http://www.unisa.ac.za/claw/news/index.php/2012/11/human-rights-remain-elusive-in-africa/

http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/emire/FINLAND/ANCHOR SOLIDARITEETINPERIA ATE SOLIDARITET SPRINCIP-FI.htm

http://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/pages/whatarehumanrights.aspx