Does the ACHPR Really Get It?! Human Rights Defenders, African Values, and the Dangerous Drift Toward Normative Regression
Posted: 31 May, 2026 Filed under: Mai Aman | Tags: ACHPR, ACHPR’s Draft Declaration, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African values, anti-terror legislation, apartheid, authoritarianism, civic space, civil society actors, colonialism, community primacy, culture, digital surveillance frameworks, freedom of expression, Guidelines on Freedom of Association and Assembly in Africa, hostile environments, human rights defenders, LGBTQ defenders, moral health of society, official panel discussion, protest rights, public-order laws, respect for institutions, restrictive NGO regulations, Sovereignty, state security, women human rights defenders Leave a comment
Author: Mai Aman
Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
Civil society organisations (CSOs) participating at the 87th Ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR/ the Commission), held in Banjul, the Gambia from 12 to 20 May 2026, were alarmed when discussions began emerging around a Draft Declaration on the Promotion of the Role of Human And Peoples’ Rights Defenders And their Protection In Africa. For many CSOs working directly on civic space, freedom of expression, protest rights and defender protection across the continent, this was the first time they had become aware that such a process was already underway within the Commission.
The concern was not simply procedural, although the limited consultation surrounding a Declaration of such potential normative significance immediately raised questions. Rather, alarm quickly grew once civil society actors were able to review the text itself. As the Draft Declaration began circulating during the session, organisations realised that, in its current form, the Declaration risked doing the exact opposite of what a Declaration on human rights defenders should do; instead of strengthening protections for defenders operating in increasingly hostile environments, the Draft Declaration appeared capable of legitimising the very frameworks already being used to repress them.
Are we really on the same page? Understanding the distortion of human rights law in Africa by anti-rights actors
Posted: 16 March, 2026 Filed under: Lakshita Kanhiya, Michael Gyan Nyarko | Tags: African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African values, anti-rights actors, anti-rights backlash, challenges, constitutionalism, culture, family, human rights law, morality, national sovereignty, regional norm-setting, religion, religious fundamentalism, shrinking civic space, strategic litigation, the human rights mechanisms, transnational funding 1 Comment |
Author: Lakshita Kanhiya Legal Officer, Initiative for Strategic Litigation (ISLA) in Africa |
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Author: Michael Gyan Nyarko Deputy Executive Director, Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA) |
Too much ‘progress’ too soon?
For the past two and half decades, Africa’s human rights architecture has steadily expanded normatively, institutionally, and jurisprudentially. From the humble beginnings of African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and ‘baby’ steps of its monitoring body the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in the 1990s, the turn of the new millennium saw an increase in the number of norms as well as institutions mandated by the African Union to promote and protect human rights, including the establishment and operationalisation of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. Even with all the institutional, political and other challenges that regional these institutions have faced, they have contributed to relatively progressive human rights landscape, influencing progressive decisions of national courts and regional bodies, and contributed to embedding the language of dignity, equality, and freedom in legal and political discourse across the continent. Constitutionalism, regional norm-setting, and strategic litigation have strengthened the visibility and legitimacy of human rights principles in both legal and public arenas.
Decolonising “African values”: The future of LGBTQ+ pride and rights
Posted: 31 October, 2024 Filed under: Lesego Sekhu, Namatirayi Ngwasha | Tags: ACHPR, African Commission of Human and Peoples’ Rights, African countries, African values, anti-rights groups, discrimination, homophobia, homosexuality, human rights violations, LGBTQ+, political persecution, Pride Month, sexual orientation, social exclusion, South Africa Leave a comment
Author: Lesego Sekhu
Research Assistant, Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation
October marks Pride Month in South Africa. Historically, Pride in this country and, more broadly, the rest of the continent has been used for political advocacy, protesting against discrimination and political persecution, and reaffirming LGBTQ+ people’s rights. In the spirit of “leaving no one behind”, this year, our Pride agenda should include radical solidarity with LGBTQ+ people in other African countries who face a growing anti-rights movement specifically targeting LGBTQ+ and other sexually diverse and gender-diverse people.
AfricLaw 