African Human Rights Journal published an editorial the end of year two of the Human and Peoples’ Rights Decade in Africa
As far as human rights are concerned, the rhetoric of AU member
states has little to do with reality. When it declared the Human Rights
Decade in June 2016, the AU Assembly pledged its ‘unflinching
determination to promote and protect human and peoples’ rights in
Africa and the need for the full implementation of human and
peoples’ rights instruments and decisions and recommendations
made by the AU organs with a human rights mandate’.1 More than
that, the Assembly also called on the AU Commission ‘to ensure the
independence and integrity of AU organs with human rights mandate
by shielding them from undue external influence’.2 Regrettably, it
turned out that it was not the threat of ‘undue external influence’ by
donors and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from outside
Africa, but undue influence by the AU policy organs themselves
(culminating in Decision 1015 by the AU Executive Council in June
2018) that undermined the independence and integrity of the African
Commission.