Christof Heyns

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.

Volume 2

Human Rights Law in Africa, 1997

Human Rights Law in Africa 1998

Philip Alston

Sarah Knuckey

Thomas Probert

This book provides a detailed overview of the law and policy related to unlawful killings and the right to life. It is organized into the key thematic issues and types of killings that arose during the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions between 2004-2016. Each chapter contains an introductory overview and selected extracts from UN Special Rapporteur reports to the United Nations General Assembly and the Human Rights Council and other normative work, and covers the applicable international law, policy considerations, and common fact scenarios. Philip Alston held the mandate of United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions between 2004 and 2010; Christof Heyns did so from 2010 to 2016. This book was created to provide easy access to the work of the Special Rapporteurs, and to be a useful guide for those studying and working to promote respect for human rights. The book was edited by the two rapporteurs, together with their main advisors during their tenure as mandate holders, Sarah Knuckey and Thomas Probert.

Alston and Heyns on Unlawful Killings: A Compendium of the Jurisprudence of the United Nations Special Rapporteurs on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions from 2004-2016

Frans Viljoen

The six main United Nations human rights treaties enjoy almost universal ratification today. Almost 80 per cent of the possible ratifications have been made, and every Member State of the UN has ratified at least one of these treaties. The nearly universal acceptance of the treaties on the formal level, however, does not automatically translate into the norms contained in these documents being made a reality in the lives of the billions of people living in these countries. The treaty system is notoriously weak in terms of international enforcement, and there is a general suspicion that it has had little impact at the domestic level. Mechanisms to improve the international enforcement mechanisms of the six main treaties have been a topic of discussion and research for many years, but the domestic impact of the treaties has never been investigated in a systematic and comprehensive manner. This book constitutes the most ambitious attempt so far to establish the impact of the treaties at the domestic level. The following treaties in 20 United Nations Member States are investigated: the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the Convention Against Torture, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This book reflects the findings of 20 researchers, based in the countries investigated, under the leadership of Professors Christof Heyns and Frans Viljoen of the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, in a study done in co-operation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The influence of the treaties in each of the 20 countries is investigated in respect of its influence on the continuation, legislation, court cases, policies and practices, and the impact of the treaty system in civil society. In an overview chapter by the study leaders based on a comparison of the available data, common trends and patterns are identified, and recommendations about reforms on the national and international level are made. This is a book that should be read by all those interested in the development of the international human rights system.

Christof Heyns

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