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The O.A.U. and Human Rights: Towards a New Definition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Claude E. Welch Jr
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Extract

A fundamental dilemma has long lain at the heart of the Organisation of African Unity. Two contradictory principles have helped it maintain solidarity: the first recognises that domestic jurisdiction rests at the foundation of sovereign equality, while the second stresses that national policies such as apartheid have international consequences. These principles clash directly in the broad area of human rights.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , September 1981 , pp. 401 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

page 401 note 1 One of the most forceful expositions of this view comes in the dissenting opinion of Judge Tanaka in the 1966 decision of the International Court of Justice regarding South Africa's exercise of a mandate over Namibia: Reports of Judgements, Advisory Opinions and Orders of the International Court of Justice (The Hague, 1966), pp. 254–316.Google Scholar The salient sections are reprinted in Brownlie, Ian (ed.), Basic Documents on Human Rights (Oxford, 1971), especially pp. 461–75.Google Scholar

page 402 note 1 In this respect the O.A.U. Charter follows the general line of the Charter of the United Nations. Article 2(7) precludes the Organisation from intervening ‘in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state’. For a discussion of the limitations to such jurisdiction, see Leary, Virginia, ‘When Does the Implementation of International Human Rights Constitute Interference into the Essentially Domestic Affairs of a State?’, in Tuttle, James C. (ed), International Human Rights Law and Practice (Philadelphia, 1978), pp. 15–21.Google Scholar

page 403 note 1 Andemicael, Berhanykun, The OAU and the UN: relations between the Organization of African Unity and the United Nations (New York and London, 1976), p. 68.Google Scholar

page 403 note 2 Welch, Claude E. Jr, ‘The OAU and International Recognition: lessons from Uganda’, in El-Ayouty, Yassin (ed), The Organization of African Unity After Ten Years: comparative perspectives (New York, 1975), pp. 103–17.Google Scholar

page 404 note 1 Africa Research Bulletin. Series A: political, social, and cultural (Exeter), February 1971, col. 2008A.

page 405 note 1 Umozurike, U. O., ‘The Domestic Jurisdiction Clause in the OAU Charter’, in African Affairs (London), 78, 311, 04 1979, p. 202.Google Scholar

page 405 note 2 SirKhama, Seretse, Africa Research Bulletin, 06 1975, col. 3664Google ScholarB.

page 406 note 1 Reprinted in Legum, Colin (ed), Africa Contemporary Record, 1975–76 (London, 1976), pp. C22–4.Google Scholar

page 407 note 1 Africa Research Bulletin, December 1977, cols. 4668BC.

page 407 note 2 Ibid. January 1979, col. 5130A.

page 407 note 3 Amnesty International, ‘Recent Human Rights Violations in the Central African Empire’, London, 26 June 1979.

page 407 note 4 Africa Research Bulletin, May 1973, col. 5263C.

page 407 note 5 Weinstein, Warren, ‘Human Rights in Africa: a long-awaited voice’, in Current History (Philadelphia), 78, 455, 03 1980, p. 131.Google Scholar

page 408 note 1 International Commission of Jurists, ‘Uganda and Human Rights: reports to the UN Commissioner on Human Rights’, Geneva, 1977.

page 408 note 2 Fernando Volio Jimcnez, ‘Study of the Human Rights Situation in Equatorial Guinea’, report submitted to the Commission of Human Relations, U.N. Document E/CN. 4/1371, New York, 12 Feburary 1980; and Cronje, Susan, Equatorial Guinea, the Forgotten Dictatorship (London, 1976).Google Scholar

page 408 note 3 ‘Seminar on the Establishment of Regional Commissions on Human Rights with Special Reference to Africa’, 10–21 September 1979, New York, U.N. Document ST/HR/Ser. A/4.

page 409 note 1 U.N. Document E/CN. 4/966, 26 January 1968.

page 410 note 1 ‘Seminar on the Establishment of Regional Commissions on Human Rights with Special Reference to Africa’, 2–15 September 1969, U.N. Document ST/TAO/HR/38.

page 410 note 2 ‘Report of the Conference of African Jurists on African Legal Process and the Individual’, 5 July 1971, U.N. Document E/CN. 14/521.

page 410 note 3 ‘Seminar on the Study of New Ways and Means for Promoting Human Rights with Special Attention to the Problems and Needs of Africa’, 23 October–5 November 1973, U.N. Document ST/TAO/HR 48.

page 410 note 4 This resolution, it should be noted, came a decade after Nigeria introduced a resolution in the Commission on Human Rights, passed 28–0–3, establishing an ad hoc group to ‘study in all its aspects the proposal to establish regional commissions on human tights within the United Nations family’, 26 January 1968, U.N. Document E/CN. 4/966. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria, and the United Arab Republic served as members.

page 411 note 1 U.N. Document A/34/359/Add. 1, Annex I, p. 2, 5 November 1979.

page 412 note 1 These documents are reprinted in Brownlie (ed.), op. cit. pp. 199–232. For the text of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, see ibid. pp. 233–7.

page 414 note 1 Economic and Social Council, Res. 1596 (L), New York, 21 May 1971.

page 414 note 2 Kannyo, Edward, ‘Human Rights in Africa: problems and prospects’, International League for Human Rights, New York, 1980, p. 34Google Scholar fn. A convenient table of these and other international human rights instruments, as of January 1978, appears in the Report of the Secretary-General, A/33/1949, 19 September 1978, and is reproduced in Warren Weinstein, ‘African Perspectives on Human Rights’, Council for Policy and Social Research, Washington, D.C., Appendix II.

page 415 note 1 ‘Human Rights International Instruments: signatures, ratifications, accessions, etc., 1 January 1980’, U.N. Document ST/HR/4/Rev. 2.

page 415 note 2 Cubberley, William B., ‘Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in Africa: regional arrangements’, Commission to Study the Organisation of Peace, New York, 1980, pp. 13–14.Google Scholar

page 416 note 1 Brownlie (ed.), op. cit. pp. 389–95.

page 416 note 2 Schreiber, Anna P., The Inter American Commission on Human Rights (Leyden, 1970), p. 14.Google Scholar

page 417 note 1 Ibid. p. 24, my emphasis.

page 417 note 2 Ibid. pp. 29–30.

page 417 note 3 Ibid. p. 32.

page 417 note 4 Ibid. p. 36.

page 418 note 1 Ibid. p. 51; and Tom J. Farer and James P. Rowles, ‘The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights’, in Tuttle (ed.), op. cit. p. 56.

page 418 note 2 Articles I-IV, XVIII, XXV and XXXVI of the ‘American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man’, 1948.

page 418 note 3 Farer and Rowles, loc. cit. p. 52.

page 418 note 4 Ibid, p. 58.

page 419 note 1 Ibid. p. 70.

page 420 note 1 Africa Research Bulletin, July 1980, col. 5734A.