Abstract
The end of the Cold War brought an opening, as African countries restored civilian rule, multiparty politics, and market economies. New constitutional orders provided the best opportunity since independence to renegotiate capital punishment, most famously after the end of apartheid in South Africa. As countries such as Sierra Leone and Rwanda emerged from devastating conflict, another dimension of the death penalty debate emerged in the context of transitional justice. A new continental jurisprudence came from the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which found violations of the right to a fair trial in several famous decisions. Finally, an emerging anti-death penalty civil society placed capital punishment on domestic human rights agendas beginning in the 1990s as a space opened for promising human rights litigation.
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© 2014 Andrew Novak
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Novak, A. (2014). An Opening: The Death Penalty in an Era of Democratization. In: The Death Penalty in Africa: Foundations and Future Prospects. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137438775_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137438775_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, New York
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