Contemporary Developments in Human and Peoples’ Rights Protection in Africa: Insights from the African Union

Abstract

Human rights discourse tends to focus more on the abuse and remedy of substantive rights thereby limiting them to issues of enforcement and remedy gaps. Thus, discussions related to issues of poor implementation of relevant Shared Values Instruments, lack of sanctions against non-adherence and compliance with human rights values, norms and decisions by the states; weak human rights institutions and civil society organisations coupled with poor coordination within the African human rights system tend to be prevalent.

However, without prejudice to these, it is posited that ambit of human rights is much wider than such issues and includes methodological and procedural aspects, for examples. This chapter aims to engage with the broader perspectives to human rights. It brings to the fore the AU’s role and contributions to ‘mainstreaming’ human rights not only to underscore its governance agenda but also with regard to conflict prevention and post-conflict stabilisation including transitional justice.