The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights: A Comprehensive Agenda for Human Dignity and Sustainable Democracy in Africa.

• Author: Yusuf, Abdulqawi A.
• Position: The Chronicle Library Shelf - Book review - Book Review

The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights

A Comprehensive Agenda for Human Dignity and Sustainable Democracy in Africa

By Fatsah Ouguergouz

Preface by Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; foreword by Salim Ahmed Salim, former Secretary-General of the Organization of African Unity, and postcript by Kamel Rezag-Bara, Chairman of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2003, 1,016 pp. ISBN 90-411-2061-0

The year 2004 can assuredly be seen as a new and fundamental milestone in the construction of an African regional system for the protection of human rights. First, the 1998 Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Establishment of the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights came into force on 24 January 2004. Second, it is expected that this important judicial body will be brought into operation by the heads of State and Government of the newly created African Union at their annual summit, to be held in July 2004 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Third, the African Court was the missing element of an effective regional system for the protection of human rights, and its establishment marks beyond any doubt the beginning of a new era in the promotion of the rule of law in Africa. The coming into life of this long-awaited judicial body is a vivid testimony to the topicality and timeliness of the book by Fatsah Ouguergouz.

It is published at a time when African continental institutions have acquired stronger legal foundations, as a result of the adoption of the Constitutive Act of the African Union, which on 9 July 2002 replaced the Organization of African Unity (OAU). This Act grants the protection of human rights, the promotion of the rule of law and good governance a much more important place than the 1963 Constitutive Charter of the defunct OAU. According to its Article 3, two of the objectives of the African Union are to "promote democratic principles and institutions, popular participation and good governance" and "promote and protect human and peoples' rights in accordance with the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights and other relevant human rights instruments".

The monumental study by Mr. Ouguergouz consists of a thorough and detailed legal analysis of the normative and institutional aspects of the African human rights system. It should be recalled that this system is based essentially on the African Charter--which was adopted on 27 June...