The Future of Human Rights and the African Human Rights System

In this contribution, I approach the question of the future of the African human rights system both by situating the issue within the broader context and by reference to the system's own institutional and political setting. To this end, I deploy the COVID-19 pandemic as a lens to discuss the existential questions facing human rights, drawing out the major issues the pandemic has brought out and the lessons we can take from these about the flaws and gaps in the current human rights system in general. While the issues that threaten human rights worldwide apply to human and peoples' rights in Africa, there are some contextual peculiarities to the question of the future of human and peoples' rights on the continent. Zooming in, I address these issues of specific concern for the African human rights system, which affect its current standing and are sure to frame its future trajectory. The first consists of the institutional and structural challenges that continue to bedevil the effective functioning of the human rights institutions making up the regional system. The second concerns the political, socioeconomic, and regional context in which the African human rights system operates and the tension that has emerged in this context between human rights institutions and African Union political bodies, as highlighted in recent trends of political backlash against these institutions. It is accordingly submitted that the future of human rights in Africa depends on how the existential challenges currently facing human rights in general, and the specific issues afflicting human rights in Africa, are resolved or at the very least managed.