The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (hereinafter the African Commission) is the foremost human rights organ of the African Union (hereinafter the AU) established under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (hereinafter the African Charter) with the mandate to promote and protect human rights through examining state reports on the implementation of their obligations under the African Charter, receiving and adjudicating on complaints of human rights violations from State Parties, individuals and non-governmental organisations (hereinafter NGOs) and providing guidance to Member States through elaborations on the African Charter (For consistency, hereinafter the African Charter) provisions in the form of resolutions, guidelines, general comments among others. The African Commission has been in existence since 1987 performing its mandate with reasonable success in many regards, especially in terms of norm development while somewhat found lacking in the performance of its protective mandate, at least in the recent past.
Article by Satang Nabaneh