All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent, and interrelated. The international community must treat human rights globally in a fair and equal manner, on the same footing, and with the same emphasis.
Paragraph 5: Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna, 25 June 1993.
This was the rallying cry of the World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna, Austria in June 1993. It was a rallying cry demanded by many human rights defenders and activists in Vienna in order to establish the extent and nature of the universality of human rights and to comprehensively put paid to the ideas of exceptionalism that had become current in the era preceding Vienna and whose voices could still be heard on the floors and podiums of Vienna. This was a significant statement for another reason. This was the era of renewed confidence and hope both in the capacity of the world community to put right the wrongs of the past, and for the world community to work together in the interests of each other’s nations and for the good of humankind.
Emerging from Vienna a great responsibility was placed on the UN system of Human Rights to coordinate and assist states by providing a counselling and advisory services and to strengthen the multilateral instruments for the promotion, defence and strengthening of human rights across the world. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights was soon established. It was in his role as Deputy High Commissioner that I first met Dr Bertrand G Ramcharan in 1998. Since then, he has established himself as an expert in international law in the service of the international institutions like the United Nations and several of its agencies. In doing so he has gathered a great deal of knowledge and understanding of the human rights situations in different parts of the world. He is held in very high regard as authoritative in human rights matters.
I had the privilege of getting to know Dr Ramcharan in my various capacities as the inaugural Chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission, and later, in liaison with the National Human Rights Institutions that at some point I served as Chairperson of, and which was facilitated by the Office of the High Commissioner. Throughout those years, Ramcharan, including when he performed the functions of UN High Commissioner, served as advisor and guide. He and his staff facilitated our work during our regular visits to Geneva. By so doing he became a valued friend to many of us across the world especially
What excites me about this book is that having served simultaneously as the member of the Banjul-based African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, I got to get a Continental dimension of human rights promotion and application in my work as a member of the achpr. That work brought me and my colleagues closer to the African Union, in its earlier incarnation as the oau. It was during our time that we managed to make a case for the establishment of the African Court on Human and peoples’ Rights based in Arusha, Tanzania.
I set out herein the various instances and touchpoints one has with Bertie Ramcharan in person but also with the content of the book that he has produced. As one who has been dealing with these matters professionally for many years both as an activist, as a leader in human rights promotion and as a defender, as well as an academic, Dr Ramcharan has put at our disposal a textbook that consolidates a wide range of materials and sources in a comprehensive way that both teachers, students and activists and human rights defenders on the grounds will find value in. To the best of my knowledge, this will add to the work that is being done at the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria with the specialisation on the African human rights system, and their publications.
To the extent that this publication Africa and the Universality of Human Rights is a comprehensive treatment of the human rights systems and machinery applicable in Africa, he has produced a book the like of which I am yet to come across.
Dr Ramcharan’s work is a masterpiece. It has come at a time when Africa is wrestling with a myriad of problems notwithstanding the instruments available to nations and societies at this time. Yes, the debate about African culture and exceptionalism has waned somewhat, though I daresay it has not been eliminated altogether. The work of the late Ghanaian Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Anan in that regard is commendable. Yes, African states supported nations in the Security Council who were hellbent to teach the Brother Leader of Libya Mu’ammar Al-Qadhafi a lesson by invoking a No-Fly Zone over Libyan airspace under Resolution 1973 in March 2011. Yes, all manner of subterfuge was resorted to justify the invasion of Iraq under the pretext of the need for the destruction of weapons of mass destruction. Yes, the Ruto and Sang case at the icc generated furious calls from African states for a mass withdrawal from the Rome Statute on the basis that the icc was targeting African heads of state. That, together with the subsequent embarrassing diplomatic rebuff of the icc by South Africa in the matter of the President of
In fairness to the African states, however, it must be stated that the issue did not just end with the denunciation of the icc. Efforts were made to provide an African instrument that would substitute the icc, by undertaking to establish a Pan- African criminal justice instrument to cover crimes against humanity and war crimes etc. Towards that end the protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice and Human Rights was adopted. It was to establish a new Court of Justice and Human Rights. The Malabo Protocol was to give authority to the Court to “intervene in a Member State pursuant to a decision of the Assembly in respect of grave circumstances, namely, war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity as well as serious threats to legitimate order to restore peace and stability to the Member State of the Union …” Now nearly seven years later both Protocols have not come into effect principally because they have not yet received the required number of ratifications by Member States.
At the time of writing Ethiopia is at war against its own Tigray Province, a state of emergency has been declared, there is a call to arms by civilians and retired army officers. It is a civil war that is bound to cause enormous human rights violations and loss of life as well as an unwelcome destabilisation of the economic well-being of ordinary citizens, not to mention the flight of refugees and asylum-seekers flocking into neighbouring states. It is a human catastrophe and a humanitarian crisis that will soon engulf the whole region. On 25 October 2021 a military coup was declared in Sudan whereby the Constitution was suspended, the civilian/military interim government was dissolved, and many government officers were detained. On the streets of Khartoum and elsewhere civilians have been protesting the coup, and a growing number has been killed. That is the story that one can tell about Africa today: in Tunisia, Mali, Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, eSwatini.
Of course, these developments beg the question, what about the comprehensive human rights instruments so ably expressed in this study? How is it that this machinery that is designed to enable the advancement of peace and human rights and the elimination of conflict, and the maintenance of Good Governance and Democracy, so carefully explained by Dr Ramcharan, is not working. The confidence of Vienna may appear to have evaporated. It is a long way from 1993 to 2021 in Africa.
Having said that peace, justice and human rights are no one-day wonder instruments. These days the clamour for the withdrawal from the Rome Statute has died down; the instruments of the AU on Principles of Governing Democratic Elections among others have not been retracted. What is missing, maybe, is that the African states need stronger monitoring mechanisms that
For all the reasons stated above, this study by Dr Bertrand G Ramcharan is timely. It provides a concise, scholarly and yet interpretation and application of the relevant instruments that human rights defenders will find to be an invaluable guide for practitioners, students and government agencies.
N Barney Pityana gcob
First Chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission
Former Member of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Professor Emeritus of Law: University of South Africa;
Member: Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAf).
4 November 2021