The African Charter is the regional mechanism for the promotion and protection of human rights on that continent and is in many ways unique. Yet there is very little scholarship available analysing the Charter as an operational system in practice. This volume provides an analytical overview by a range of expert collaborators - commissioners, NGOs and academics - many of whom have been actively involved in the implementation of the Charter since its establishment in 1981. Chapters cover the Charter's reporting system, the interpretation of different rights by the Commission, the prospects for the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights and the role of NGOs. This authoritative, comprehensive and up-to-date book will interest lawyers acting for government and non-governmental organisations,
academics and postgraduates.
MALCOLM EVANS is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Bristol and Director of the Bristol Centre for International Legal Studies. His chief areas of interest in the field of human rights concern the freedom of religion and torture prevention, and he has written extensively on these topics, with principal works including Religious Liberty and International Law in Europe (1997) and, as co-author, Preventing Torture (1998), Protecting Prisoners (1999) and Combating Torture in Europe (2001). He is a member of the Board of Management of the Association of the Prevention of Torture. With Rachel Murray he has co-edited a collection of Documents of the African Commission on Human Rights (2001) and also continues his long-standing research and writing interests in the international law of the sea.
RACHEL MURRAY is Lecturer in Law, Birkbeck College, University of London and was previously Assistant Director at the Centre for Human Rights in the School of Law, Queen's University, Belfast. She has been researching the work of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights for a number of years. She has written widely on the subject (The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and International Law, 2000) and regularly contributes articles and information on this area to the Human Rights Law Journal, the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights and the South African Journal of Human Rights. She co-edited Documents of the African Commission in Human and Peoples' Rights (2001) with Malcolm Evans. She works closely with African and international NGOs operating in this area and regularly attends the Commission's sessions, liaising with its members.