Improving state reporting under African human rights treaties

Abstract

State reporting obligation on human rights treaties normally arise when a country ratifies or accedes to a human rights treaty. This obligation requires member states to report periodically on the measures taken to implement the provisions of that particular human rights instrument to the supervising or monitoring treaty body. When states are carrying out this obligation, they provide comprehensive information on the legislative, policy, administrative, judicial, statistical and other measures taken to advance the rights enumerated in the human rights treaty. African states have not been faithful in complying with this obligation as less than ten countries are in good standing in terms of reporting under the African Charter and the Maputo Protocol. This mini dissertation seeks to trace the root cause of the problem making states to fail dismally to comply with the reporting obligation by first comparatively analysing on how the United Nations Treaty Bodies and the African Commission are configured and functioning. Then state reports submitted by four African countries representing four linguistic and sub-regional spread to treaty bodies will be examined. This is done with the view of making findings and recommendations on how state reporting under African human rights treaties can be improved.