By Benoit S NGOM, President of the African Diplomatic Academy.
The year 2026 must be solemnly celebrated as marking the 40th anniversary of the entry into force of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which occurred in October 1986. This anniversary is a moment of memory, but above all of critical reflection on the African trajectory in terms of promoting and protecting human rights.
Indeed, by adopting this fundamental legal instrument, Africa asserted, as early as the mid-1980s, to the world that it was fully sensitive to the issue of human rights, while claiming the right to offer a reading rooted in its history, values, and socio-political realities. The aim was to remind that the universality of human rights should not be confused with imposed uniformity, and that the historicity of this notion should be recognized and respected.
An African conception of human rights
Africa, aware that the history of human rights is intimately linked to that of protective mechanisms that accompany them, has always argued that these mechanisms are conditioned by the places, cultures, and times of their elaboration. The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights thus stands as a structured response to Eurocentric theories of human rights, which tend to present these rights as the exclusive product of a particular historical experience.
The African Charter enshrines an original and innovative vision: it refuses to separate individual rights from those of the group, the rights of the citizen from those of the people. It strongly asserts that exercising rights implies responsibilities, and that individual freedom cannot be thought of outside of collective solidarity. This approach, deeply rooted in African communal values, is one of Africa’s main contributions to universal human rights thinking.
A difficult adoption and hesitant political commitment
Adopted in Nairobi in 1981, the Charter took into account the main demands put forward by African human rights lawyers and activists. Many hoped that its entry into force would happen quickly. However, this was not the case. For several years, ratifications were delayed, revealing the deep reservations of many heads of state, whose national handling of human rights often left much to be desired. For some, the adoption of the Charter was more of a symbolic act, intended to satisfy the international community, than a genuine political commitment.
Faced with this inertia, and after five years without significant progress, the African Jurists Association issued a solemn appeal in the form of an open letter addressed to African heads of state and government, urging them to ratify the Charter and allow its effective entry into force.
The decisive role of Senegal and President Abdou Diouf
A decisive turning point occurred when Senegal presented its Head of State for the presidency of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now the African Union. When President Abdou Diouf took over the leadership of the OAU in July 1985, less than ten states had ratified the Charter.
In my capacity as President of the African Jurists Association, I then drew President Diouf’s attention to the need to make the ratification of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights one of the major markers of his mandate, just like the fight against Apartheid, which deeply concerned him.
President Diouf, supported by his diplomatic advisor Ousmane Tanor Dieng and by the Senegalese Minister of Foreign Affairs, the jurist Ibrahima Fall, was particularly convincing with his peers. Through a diplomacy of conviction, based on dialogue, legal education, and political commitment, many heads of state, who were previously insensitive to human rights issues, were brought to support the cause.
Thus, a few months after the end of President Diouf’s term at the head of the OAU, twenty-five African states had ratified the Charter, allowing its entry into force in October 1986.
Forty years later: a mixed assessment
Forty years after its entry into force, the assessment remains mixed. There is no evidence to suggest that respect for human rights and peoples’ rights is now the norm in most African countries. On the contrary, while the forms of repression have evolved, violations persist.
The struggle for protecting individual freedoms, for respecting freedom of association, freedom of movement, and for freedom of expression, especially through an effective and protected exercise of press freedom, remains more relevant than ever. Contemporary challenges – political authoritarianism, restrictions on civic space, instrumentalization of the law, pressures on the media and human rights defenders – call for a vigorous reappropriation of the spirit and letter of the Charter.
Moment of truth for a real effectiveness of the proclaimed rights.
The 40th anniversary of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights must not be a mere commemoration. It must be a moment of truth, a call to renew the commitment of African states, continental institutions, and civil societies in favor of a real effectiveness of the proclaimed rights. The Charter remains a visionary text; however, its implementation must live up to the hopes it has raised.
