Infrequent and inadequate reporting under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights: the African Peer Review Mechanism as a solution

Abstract

"The promotion and protection of human rights is important both at the national and international level. However, at the national level, several factors including government excesses tend to negatively affect the status of implementation of human rights. This has led to national human rights situations being measured against international standards. In this regard, different strategies have been developed to ensure compliance with international norms, the most basic of which is that of state reporting. ... This procedure is found in international and regional human rights instruments. Examples are treaties in the United Nations (UN), European, Inter-American and African human rights systems. In the African system, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights is the core human rights instrument. The African Charter is seen as a 'unique' document that represents the 'African' concept of rights. ... Under article 1 of the Charter, state parties undertake to adopt legislative and other measures to give effect to the rights in the Charter. Article 62 obliges each state party to submit every two years, from the date the Charter comes into force, a report on the legislative or other measures taken with a view to giving effect to the rights and freedoms recognised and guaranteed by the Charter. The organ responsible for evaluation of reports is the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (African Commission). ... It should be noted from the outset that the African Commission's competence to ensure effective implementation of the African Charter by member states has been affected due to various problems affecting the state reporting system. The most endemic of these include infrequent and inadequate reporting. ... Chapter one introduces the study, the framework of the problem that the study seeks to address and the methodology to be employed. Chapter two discusses the concept of state reporting, how the system works under the African Charter and the challenges therein. A comparative analysis of other international and regional reporting systems is also made with the chief objective of identifying how they deal with state reporting problems. Chapter three presents an overview of the APRM which includes an analysis of the human rights aspects of the mechanism. Chapter four critically analyses how the APRM can be utilised to help the African Commission address the problems of infrequent and inadequate reporting under the African Charter, and chapter five contains the conclusion and recommendations of the study." -- Introduction.