ABSTRACT
Owing to its turbulent history, the African continent has faced tremendous challenges in the human rights sphere. The continent frequently makes international news for protracted and catastrophic civil wars, interstate conflicts, ethnic cleansing, coup d’états, corruption of gargantuan proportions, chaotic elections, toxic waste dumping, famine, diseases, child labour and the like. This state of affairs ensures that human right abuses on a massive scale continue across the continent. The current dire situations in Sudan, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe are glaring examples. The First Organization of African Unity Ministerial Conference on Human Rights in Africa (1999) correctly identified the causes of human rights violations in Africa. These included the following: contemporary forms of slavery, neo-colonialism, racism, religious intolerance, poverty, conflicts, mismanagement and bad governance, corruption, monopoly of power, lack of judicial and press autonomy, environmental degradation, terrorism and nepotism.1 Despite that grim outlook, a potentially viable regional human rights system is emerging in Africa which is progressively making the human rights promises of the UDHR2 a reality to the people of Africa.
