Respecting the rights of urban refugees in East Africa through a human rights approach to urbanisation
Posted: 7 September, 2015 Filed under: Gertrude Mafoa Quan, Michael Addaney | Tags: 1951 Convention, assault, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), discrimination, East Africa, Eritrea, Ethiopia, hostility, human rights, Kenya, nited Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, poverty, Refugee Consortium of Kenya, refugees, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, sustainable development, Tanzania, Uganda, UN Habit, UNHCR, United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, urban development, urban refugees, urbanisation 4 Comments
Author: Michael Addaney
Student (MPhil Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa), Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria
Author: Gertrude Mafoa Quan
Candidate Attorney; LLM (Multidisciplinary Human Rights) student at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
The city is the new refugee camp…
~ International Rescue Committee
Article 1 of the 1951 United Nations (UN) Convention relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 Convention) defines refugee as ‘a person who is outside his or her country of nationality or habitual residence due to a well-founded fear of persecution base on race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion and is unable or unwilling to avail him or herself of the protection of that country or to return there for fear of persecution’. Due to contextual issues, article 1 of the 1969 Organisation for African Unity’s Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa (1969 OAU Convention) added a second paragraph to the 1951 Convention to incorporate people that have been displaced due to liberation wars and internal upheavals.
Meanwhile, there is no internationally recognised definition for urban refugees. However, the Refugee Consortium of Kenya (RCK) defines an urban refugee as a refugee who satisfies the international requirements for obtaining a refugee status and has self-settled in a city or town. Recent decades have experienced rapid population growth with most cities witnessing urban sprawl. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported in 2009 that an estimated 58 percent of the world’s 10.5 million refugees now reside in cities.
Despite it being mostly rural region, UN Habit has projected that Sub-Saharan Africa and for that matter countries in Eastern Africa will have more than half of its population residing in urban areas by 2026. Characteristically, there has been increasing flow of refugees to urban areas in this region too. According to official UNHCR 2015 statistics, four Eastern African countries (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia) host more than 1.5 million refugees. These refugees are mostly from 9 countries (Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda, Burundi and DR Congo).
The response of the Africa Union to critical human security threats in Africa
Posted: 7 August, 2015 Filed under: Michael Addaney | Tags: Africa, African Standby Force, African Union, al Shabaab, AU Constitutive Act, Boko Haram, conflicts, economic growth, genocide, human security, international terrorism, leadership, peace and security, Peace and Security Council, poverty, promotion of peace, PSC Protocol, stability, sustainable deve, United Nations Security Council, war Leave a commentAuthor: Michael Addaney
Student (MPhil Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa), Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria
Africa, the second most populous continent with the fastest growing population on the globe faces complex and integrated human security threats. From a broader perspective, human security is far more than the absence of violent conflict. It encompasses respect for human rights, good governance, access to education and health care and ensuring that each individual has opportunities and choices to fulfill his or her potential. In Africa, addressing these issues requires alleviating poverty, promoting economic growth, freedom from fear and access to a healthy natural environment as well as and preventing conflict. Characteristically, Africa is associated with war, poverty, genocide, diseases and grievous abuses of human rights, prolonged armed conflicts and rising terrorist activities. Conventionally, the African Union has adopted several instruments to deal with these peace and security threats. This article focuses on increased armed conflicts and terrorist activities on the continent.
Tanzania’s proposed new constitution and the fate of social and economic rights
Posted: 3 February, 2015 Filed under: Daniel Marari | Tags: ACHPR, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, CESCR, Commission on Economic, constitution, ESR, exclusion, ICESCR, illiteracy, inequality, International Covenant on Economic, justiciability, poverty, Social and Cultural Rights, social and economic rights, Tanzania 3 Comments
Author: Daniel Marari
LLM, International Human Rights Law, Lund University, Sweden
The United Republic of Tanzania is currently in the process of enacting a new constitution. In the text of the final draft of the proposed constitution (http://sheria.go.tz/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=44&Itemid=68) currently being deliberated by the constituent assembly, are interesting proposals to include important social and economic rights (ESR) as justiciable rights. But the specific content of rights and scope of obligations to be incorporated therein is a matter that is likely to be controversial. Indeed, judicial adjudication of ESR is a matter that is often still disputed or even entirely rejected in many national legal systems. Like many other domestic jurisdictions, Tanzania adopts the idealized distinction of human rights and the popular perception remains that, for lack of constitutional recognition, ESR are simply objectives and principles of state policy as opposed to legally enforceable rights. Nonetheless, socio-economic rights occupy a central place in the well-being of the human person and the international community has accordingly recognised a positive international legal framework imposing varied obligations to advance these rights.
Why Kenya needs to ratify the ICESCR Optional Protocol
Posted: 4 November, 2013 Filed under: William Aseka | Tags: African Union, Chief Justice Willy Mutunga, economic rights, International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, International Criminal Court, international human rights, Kenya, poverty, President Uhuru Kenyatta, socio-economic rights, South African Development Community Tribunal Leave a comment
Author: William Aseka
LLM candidate, Syracuse University College of Law, New York (United States of America)
As Beth Simmons points out, three billion people survive on less than $2.50 per day. She states that if these facts are anything to go by, it is even harder to comprehend that economic rights have been codified as part of the international human rights system for the past 60 years. According to Simmons, what is even more disturbing is the fact that over 85% of states have ratified one or two treaties that recognise economic rights. In Kenya, more than 58% of Kenyans live below the poverty line. Further, more than half of the Kenyan population is poor and over 7 million Kenyans live in extreme poverty, despite Kenya having ratified the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) 41 years ago.
On 5 May 2013, the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR entered into force after receiving its tenth instrument of ratification. The purpose of the Optional Protocol is to address violations of socio-economic rights which have been loosely applied when compared to the civil and political rights. The Protocol achieves this by giving an individual locus standi before the Committee and hence asking directly whether a state violated the ICESCR. As much as there is scepticism about this Protocol, this paper wishes to submit that states, especially Kenya, should look beyond this scepticism and ratify the Protocol. This article will provide both arguments for and against ratification of the Optional Protocol.
AfricLaw 