Access to the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights: A Case of the Poacher turned Gamekeeper

The last two decades have witnessed significant advances in the human rights landscape in Africa.The period has witnessed a modest though steady growth of human rights, reflected in the growth ofnorms and institutions for the protection and promotion of human rights in the continent. A recententrant to the growing institutional edifice, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, standsout in particular.Although an invaluable addition to the machinery for the protection of human rights, therestrictive access to the Court may undermine the utility of the Court. Under the Protocolestablishing the Court, States Parties have automatic access to the Court, whereas individuals andnon-governmental organizations (NGOs) can only institute cases before it if the State Partyconcerned makes a declaration accepting the competence of the Court to receive such cases. Evenso, the Court still has discretion to receive such cases. This scheme of access to the Court defies theprimary raison d'être of international human rights law, namely to protect the individual or groupsagainst inimical conduct of the state. Moreover, states have no incentive to refer human rights casesto international human rights tribunals. Put more bluntly, to rely on the ‘predatory’ state to institutecases before the African Court may well be a case of the poacher turned gamekeeper.