African Commission on Human and People’s rights celebrates the 40th anniversary of the African Charter on Human Rights.

On 28th June 2021, the Chairperson Of The African Commission On Human And Peoples’ Rights Honourable Commissioner Solomon Ayele Dersso made a statement highlighting this symbolic date for the future maintenance and respect for Human Rights in Africa. He remembered the circumstances that motivated the adoption of the African Charter in 1981 and how it has been defining the essence and meaning of the rights that give full expression to Africa’s long struggle and aspirations for dignity, freedom, equality and justice. He stressed the importance of the African Charter in fulfilling the gap of representation of the peoples of the African continent in the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) but also for the failure in the UDHR to recognize foreign rule or colonial domination as the antithesis of human rights. Differently from the UDHR, whose article 2 proclaims the application of the rights in the Declaration irrespective of the status of a peoples as a subject of colonial rule, the African Charter does not apply human rights rules without freedom from colonial rule. For further information, please visit: https://www.achpr.org/pressrelease/detail?id=589