Noncompliance with the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights

• In Event: International Law and Second-Order Compliance

Abstract

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (the African Court)—African Union’s (AU’s) regional human rights court—has consistently faced challenges in holding African states legally accountable for their human rights violations and improving human rights on the continent. Operational since 2006, the African Court first struggled to receive cases, but once a small percentage of AU member states allowed individuals and NGOs to directly petition the Court, its caseload improved. As the Court began rendering decisions, however, it became clear that states would overwhelmingly resist complying with its rulings. Only one state has fully complied with the Court, and the majority of states do not comply with, and openly contest, the Court’s rulings. This paper examines the variation in whether and how states resist complying with the African Court’s rulings. It draws on an original dataset on African Court rulings and states’ responses to them over time. The dataset includes whether and how states respond to the Court’s rulings, both directly (e.g., no response; reporting full or partial compliance; refusing to comply) and indirectly (e.g., contestation; withdrawal of individual and NGO access to the Court). This analysis elucidates how, despite some early cases of full or partial compliance, noncompliance with the African Court’s rulings has become the norm. The paper theorizes the development of noncompliance based on the feedback effects of state practice and rhetoric which has gone largely unchallenged, given the endemic weaknesses of the African human rights system.

Author

• Nicole De Silva, Concordia University