A crisis of design and judicial practice? Curbing state disengagement from the African court on human and peoples rights

Abstract

In the space of four years, between 2016 and 2020, four of the ten states that had recognised the jurisdiction of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights to receive cases directly from individuals and NGOs withdrew their declarations made under article 34(6) of the Court Protocol. While this form of contestation is not unprecedented in the history of states’ behaviour towards international courts, this article argues that the disengagement from the African Court’s jurisdiction involves peculiarities that specifically relate to the Court’s system design and its practice. The main contention in the article is that the declarationbased adherence to the African Court’s jurisdiction is in crisis due to a costbenefit imbalance. The article argues that although all four withdrawals resulted from decisions of the Court on important and contentious domestic socio-political issues, systemic features such as the lack of appeal, an overly restrictive review mechanism and the weak functioning of institutional shields contributed significantly to the withdrawal. The article also investigates administration of justice and judicial law making by the Court as factors that contributed to states’ distrust, before proposing options to curb the crisis and regain state adherence. Keywords: African Court; article 34(6) declaration; individual access; indirect access; withdrawal; legitimacy; discontent management; system design; judicial law making; systemic reforms.