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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The Effect of an African Court on the Domestic Legal Orders of African States
Author:Hopkins, Kevin
Year:2002
Periodical:African Human Rights Law Journal
Volume:2
Issue:2
Pages:234-251
Language:English
Geographic term:Africa
Subjects:conflict of laws
international organizations
human rights
African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights
African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights
Law, Human Rights and Violence
Inter-African Relations
Abstract:The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights has proved to be largely inadequate and ineffective in ensuring the protection of human rights on the African continent. Most critics believe that if the African Commission is complemented by an African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, then the latter may be just what is needed to 'give teeth' to the African human rights system. However, the creation of a supranational legal system does not come without its own set of peculiar problems - the most obvious of which is created by the international law principle of State sovereignty. This principle is at odds with the idea that States can in fact be obliged to regulate their municipal laws under the instruction of a supranational legal order. It is this tension that is the focus of this paper. It contains sections on incorporating the African Charter and the Protocol on the Establishment of an African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights into the domestic law of States; the domestic effects of the African Court's jurisprudence on African States; the possibility of conflicting ideologies; lessons from the European system; and the application of these lessons, illustrated by two examples from the South African context, viz. protecting property and gender equality. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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