African Court on human rights celebrates 20 years of its landmark rulings

DAR ES SALAAM: THE African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, based in Arusha, Tanzania, marks its 20th anniversary. The court’s detailed report of its performance sent to the Daily News, says though it is among international judicial bodies, yet, it remains overshadowed by the International Criminal Court(ICC), despite its groundbreaking rulings and demonstrated willingness to engage with Africa’s unique regional realities.

Yet the court has proven its institutional resilience and offers a more promising trajectory for advancing human rights across the continent than other international judicial institutions.

The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights is a regional judicial body whose mandate is to uphold the rights enshrined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

The Protocol establishing the Court has been ratified by 34 of the AU’s 55 member states. To date, the Court has adjudicated upwards of 150 cases over its two decades of operation — a caseload several times larger than that handled by the International Criminal Court in The Hague over a comparable period. The ICC, for its part, has processed just over 30 cases, handed down far fewer verdicts, and seen fewer still enforced.

Despite lacking the prominence of the ICC, the African Court’s rulings carry greater potential for enforcement. A domestic judge, for instance, can invoke the African Charter — ratified by the state — and cite the Court’s interpretation of a given matter as binding precedent, thereby aligning national jurisprudence with the regional standard. Beyond that, the Court’s decisions are increasingly cited by other regional jurisdictions, most notably the ECOWAS Court of Justice (the judicial arm of the Economic Community of West African States).

Another significant advantage the African Court holds over the ICC is its willingness to grapple with issues specific to the continent.

The International Criminal Court(ICC) has historically concentrated its caseload on Africa and has been frequently — and often justifiably — accused of bias. Yet many of the challenges confronting the continent are fundamentally distinct, and the ICC, much like its European counterparts, fails to address what is arguably Africa’s most sensitive fault line: the rights of individual peoples and communities.

The African Charter enshrines collective rights — those of peoples, groups, and communities — including, for example, the right of peoples to freely dispose of their natural resources and the right to economic and social development. On this issue, so deeply resonant across the continent, the African Court stands as the most progressive among international institutions.

A further distinguishing feature of the African Court is its practice of prescribing concrete remedial measures and specific obligations for states in its rulings.

By contrast, the ICC functions largely as a political body, while its mechanisms for victim compensation and the punishment of perpetrators remain largely inoperative.

The African Court’s judgments, by contrast, lay out detailed reparation frameworks and articulate clear, issue-specific demands on respondent states. Last year, in a case heard in Tanzania, the Court ruled that states bear extensive obligations toward persons with albinism.

These include the provision of sunscreen and protective eyewear, the supply of assistive learning devices to students with visual impairments, and a duty to promptly investigate and prosecute attacks targeting persons with albinism.

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The court concludes its report saying a notable advantage of the African Court lies in its independence from the political will of member states. Established practice demonstrates that when a case is brought against a state, the judge who is a national of that state recuses themselves. The ICC, by contrast, has repeatedly found itself at the center of international controversies over alleged political bias. Former ICC chief prosecutors have faced accusations of lobbying on behalf of individual states, while member states have selectively disregarded the Court’s rulings.

According to its assessment, a sustained political backing for the African Court, along with broader ratification of the relevant protocols and the alignment of national laws and practices with the African Charter, would strengthen the regional judicial architecture and enable steady progress on human rights across the continent. Supporting robust regional judicial mechanisms—as opposed to politicized tribunals—is an essential component of political sovereignty, not only for Tanzania but for African states at large.