Is the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in an Existential Crisis?

Abstract

Employing a sociological perspective on the law, this study explores instances of resistance against the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Union’s continental human rights judicial body. This approach allows us to examine different forms of resistance that might not necessarily be of a legal character, but which may still have profound implications for the Court’s authority, legitimacy, and operation. Accordingly, the article identifies two forms of resistance against the African Court: ‘pushback’ and ‘backlash’. The former refers to an ordinary form of critique directed against the overall development of an international court, while the latter is understood as an extraordinary form of critique that puts the fundamental authority of a court at stake. While pushback was mainly seen in the early stages of the Court’s establishment, backlash started to emerge following its ground-breaking judgments that caused heated debates on controversial topics. This article concludes that based on the identified and analysed forms of resistance, it is doubtful that the African Court can maintain and fulfil the purpose for which it was established: the protection and promotion of human rights in Africa.