Abstract:
Although national Human Rights Commissions (NHRCs) are institutional
mechanisms suitable for advancing the domestic implementation of socioeconomic
rights, traditional approaches to the advancement of these rights
have more readily focused on the role of courts. This process has witnessed
the prioritisation of the justiciability of these rights above other non- and
quasi-judicial means for their realisation. As a result, contemporary
scholarship has barely noticed the role and practical efforts of NHRCs in
this regard. To fill this gap, this article evaluates the mandate, activities, and
effectiveness of NHRCs in three selected Commonwealth African countries
– Nigeria, South Africa and Uganda – and identifies four factors which
either impair or enhance their effective performance of this role: the explicit
provision of socio-economic rights as justiciable guarantees in the
constitutional framework of states; the granting of an explicit legal or
constitutional mandate on socio-economic rights to NHRCs; the provision
of adequate institutional, functional, and financial independence for NHRCs;
and a high level of institutional support from other institutions that ensure
states’ accountability for human rights.
