Documents of the African Commission in Human and Peoples' Rights

The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights establishes the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights as the regional human rights mechanism for the African continent. Regrettably, the work of the Commission is not as widely known as it deserves. This is at least partly due to the difficulty of gaining access to information about its functioning and to the documentation which it produces. This is as true in Africa itself as it is in the rest of the world. This collection attempts to address that problem and to promote both the Charter and the Commission by making the core and principal published documents more readily available. It is hoped that this will enable an expanded audience of scholars, academics, practitioners and those interested in international human rights to become familiar with the significant achievements of the Commission and, in consequence to be better placed to understand and asses its contribution to the development of international human rights law in Africa and beyond. This volume contains the documents produced by the African Commission since its creation in 1987 up to and including its Twelfth Activity Report adopted in 1999. It is hoped that further supplementary volumes containing subsequent Reports and related material will be produced in the future. Part One of the volume contains the basic constitutional documents of the Commission, including the African Charter itself, the Commission's Rules of Procedure as amended, and the Protocol on the establishment of an African Court(which as yet bas not received the requisite number of ratifications to enter into force). Part Two contains the other documents produced by the Commission over the course of its history. The Commission holds two sessions per year, usually in March/ April and November/October. At the end of each session the Commission issues a Final Communiqué. It also produces an annual Activity Report, twelve of which are reproduced. Other documents produced by the Commission are inserted in the volume in date order. Thus Part Two provides a chronological account of the Commission's output. Various tables of communications and resolutions are provided at pp.285-310 of this volume. They are inserted at this point since it was only in the subsequent Activity Reports that the Commission published Decisions on communications. It is hoped that these tables will assist the users in locating the Decisions which are published by the Commission as Annexes to the Annual Activity Reports. Communications and Resolutions are listed in numerical order, by Article number, and also by the state party involved.