Introduction

Summary

In Volume 1 of The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the political, intellectual and cultural context in which the ideas underlying the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) were conceived and nurtured, and the principles and politics upon which the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was founded and functioned, were delineated. Without an appreciation of that context and of the nature of the OAU polity, it would be hardly possible to make sense of the political account of the ACHPR process or to grasp how the ACHPR should be understood. The essential, dominating, core of that context was a deep existential resentment against Western universalism and accordingly an attendant desire for a hitherto disregarded African perspective to be projected across the spectrum of the commanding heights of that Western universalism. It was a desire that would be symbiotically asserted not only in intellectual and cultural spheres of activity but also in the praxis of African political leaders in national, regional and international forums and declarations. Most especially at the UN and its agencies in opposition to the international post-war settlement, which, it was argued, had to be recalibrated so as to incorporate, for the first time, African interests and priorities.

Volume 1 also looked at the African states’ engagement with human rights domestically and on the international stage. Domestically, it was clear that the human rights declarations and commitments incorporated into African independence constitutions had evoked little enthusiasm at the time or any great expectation that they would prove effective, and, unsurprisingly, post-independence, they were therefore either ignored or simply removed. Indeed, African political leaders made little secret of their contempt for human rights, which, they argued, had little relevance to the circumstances of the newly independent African states or the traditional African way of life. They therefore not only refused to contemplate any constraint on their almost unrestrained authority but also, in most cases, amended constitutions so as to augment further that authority. It was also clear that, with few exceptions, a ‘modern’ civil society that might serve to temper or blunt the political power of African leaders or demand a human rights regime was as yet still in the process of formation.