Author Description

The Human Rights Law in Africa Series captures the legal protection of human rights in Africa as it develops every year. Each annual volume covers the legal position in respect of human rights in Africa on the level of the United Nations, the Organisation of African Unity, & the national legal systems of all the countries in Africa, as it was on the first day of that year. The first volume covered the situation on 1 January 1996. It included charts of ratification & reprints of the most important international instruments, as well as the human rights provisions of the constitutions of the different countries. It did not include any commentary. This book, the second volume in the Series, covers the situation as it was on 1 January 1997. It contains documents not included before, updated charts of ratification, constitutional provisions enacted during the last year and--for the first time--extensive commentary on the African Charter system as well as the national legal systems of 12 African countries. This second volume consequently does not replace the first one, but supplements it, in the same way that future volumes will supplement this one. All the material included is new. The Series should be of immense value to judges, legal practitioners, academics, NGOs & members of legislatures & treaty-monitoring bodies dealing with human rights on the African continent. The main objective is to contribute towards the development of an indigenous African human rights jurisprudence, an essential precondition for the greater realisation of human rights norms in Africa.