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| Notes to AfricansRobert Traer* 1 Quoted in Development, Human Rights and the Rule of Law, Report of a conference held in The Hague, 27 April-1 May 1981, International Commission of Jurists (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1981), 5. Mbaya first asserted this right in an address to the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.2 Musa Ballah Conteh, "Human Rights Teaching in Africa: The Socio-Economic and Cultural Context," in Frontiers of Human Rights Education, ed. Asbjørn Eide and Marek Thee (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983), 58. Rhoda Howard analyzes various human rights comparisons to which Africa is often subjected in "Evaluating Human Rights in Africa: Some Problems of Implicit Comparisons," Human Rights Quarterly 6, no. 2 (May 1984):160-79.3 Ibid., 59.4 Ibid.5 Claude E. Welch, Jr., "Human Rights as a Problem in Contemporary Africa," in Human Rights and Development in Africa, ed. Welch and Ronald I. Meltzer (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), 11.6 Ibid., 16. Thomas M. Franck writes: "It is certainly not to a jurisprudential desert that the sturdy oak of the common law has been transplanted. Particularly in the area of procedural human rights, much that the common law posits is also indigenous to tribal or 'native' customary law." Franck, "Introduction: Western Law in Non-Western Nations," in Human Rights in Third World Perspectives, vol. 1 (London: Oceana Publications, Inc., 1982), xvi.7 Ibid., 11.8 Yougindra Khushalani, "Human Rights in Asia and Africa," Human Rights Law Journal 4, no. 4 (1983):415.9 Ibid., 415-16.10 Ibid., 416-417.11 Ibid., 417.12 Ibid., 418.13 Iba Der Thiam, "Human Rights in African Cultural Traditions," in Human Rights Teaching 3 (Paris: UNESCO, 1982), 4-10.14 Chris C. Mojekwu, "International Human Rights: The African Perspective," in International Human Rights: Contemporary Issues, ed. Jack L. Nelson and Vera M. Green (Stanfordville, N.Y.: Human Rights Publishing Group, Earl M. Coleman Enterprises, 1980), 86.15 Ibid., 86-87.16 Ibid., 88. Dunstan M. Wai also argues that the authoritarian character of modern African governments is the result of colonial exploitation which disrupted the protection of human rights by traditional forms of authority and decisionmaking. Wai, "Human Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa," in ¯Human Rights: Cultural and Ideological Perspectives¯, ed. Adamantia Pollis and Peter Schwab (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1979), 115. See Warren Weinstein, "Africa's Approach to Human Rights at the United Nations," Issue: A Quarterly Journal of Opinion 6, no. 4 (Winter 1976):17 and Richard F. Weisfelder, "The Decline of Human Rights in Lesotho: An Evaluation of Domestic and External Determinants," Issue: A Quarterly Journal of Opinion 6, no. 4 (Winter 1976):23.17 Ibid., 93.18 Paulin J. Hountondji, "The Master's Voice—Remarks on the Problem of Human Rights in Africa," in Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights (Paris: UNESCO, 1986), 323.19 Ibid.20 Paul Ricoeur, "Introduction," in Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights, 28.21 Lakshman Marasinghe, "Traditional Conceptions of Human Rights in Africa," in Human Rights and Development in Africa, ed. Claude E. Welch, Jr. and Ronald I. Meltzer (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984), 42.22 Jack Donnelly, "Human Rights and Human Dignity: An Analytic Critique of Non-Western Conceptions of Human Rights," American Political Science Review 76 (1982):303. Quoted in Human Rights and Development in Africa, 42. Donnelly's general Western approach is reiterated in "Cultural Relativism and Universal Human Rights," Human Rights Quarterly 6, no. 4 (November 1984): 401. His position is strongly criticized by Josiah A. M. Cobbah in "African Values and the Human Rights Debate: An African Perspective," Human Rights Quarterly 9, no. 3 (August 1987):309-31.23 Lakshman Marasinghe, "The Relationship between the Social Infrastructure and the Working of the Legal System: A Case Study on Access to Justice in Northern Nigeria," Verfassung und Recht in Ubersee 14 (Hamburg: Forschungstelle fur Volkerrecht und auslandishes "ffentliches Recht, 1981).24 Lakshman Marasinghe, "Traditional Conceptions of Human Rights in Africa," in Human Rights and Development in Africa, 43.25 Ibid. Asmarom Legesse argues that the collective ownership of land by African peoples such as the Amhara of northern Ethiopia, who distribute the use of land by inheritance equally to sons and daughters from both their mothers and fathers, "enshrines the most basic idea of 'human rights'." Legesse, "Human Rights in African Political Culture," in The Moral Imperataives of Human Rights: A World Survey, ed. Kenneth W. Thompson (Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1980), 126.26 Josiah A. M. Cobbah, "African Values and the Human Rights Debate: An African Perspective," Human Rights Quarterly 9, no. 3 (August 1987):331.27 Ibid.28 See "African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights," in Human Rights Teaching 3 (Paris: UNESCO, 1982), 11-17.29 African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, Preamble and Chapter IV, Article 60, in Human Rights in International Law: Basic Texts (Strasbourg: Directorate of Human Rights, 1985), 207 and 223. However, Asmarom Legesse argues that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is universal only in intent: "If Africans were the sole authors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, they might have ranked the rights of communities above those of individuals. . .." Legesse, "Human Rights in African Political Culture," in The Moral Imperatives of Human Rights, 128.30 Ibid., 207.31 Richard Gittleman, "The African Convention of Human and Peoples' Rights: Prospects and Procedures," in Guide to International Human Rights Practice, ed. Hurst Hannum (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), 161. See Gittleman, "The Banjul Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights: A Legal Analysis," and Edward Kannyo, "The Banjul Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights: Genesis and Political Background," in Human Rights and Development in Africa, 152-76 and 128-51. See also B. Obinna Okere, "The Protection of Human Rights in Africa and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights: A Comparative Analysis with the European and American Systems," Human Rights Quarterly 6, no. 2 (May 1984):141-59, and James C. N. Paul, "Human Rights and Legal Development: Observations on Some African Experiences," in International Human Rights Law and Practice: The Roles of the United Nations, the Private Sector, the Government and Their Lawyers (Philadelphia: International Printing, 1978), 23-37.32 Edward Kannyo, "Human Rights in Africa: Problems and Prospects," a report prepared for the International League of Human Rights (May 1980), 4. R. Ogbonna Ohuche, professor of education at the University of Nigeria, writes in his foreword to Nwachukwuike S. S. Iwe's history of human rights: "Here in Nigeria, we have for sometime been conscious of the expectation of the Black man wherever he may be that the nations should face the challenge of restoring the dignity of man fouled up by years of slavery and centuries of colonialism, imperialism and oppression. Our successive Governments have re-stated time and again our national belief in the fundamental rights of man." In Iwe, The History and Contents of Human Rights: A Study of the History and Interpretation of Human Rights (New York: Peter Lang, 1986), 6.33 Kenneth O. Kaunda, The Imperative of Human Dignity, address at the inaugural session of the Non-Governmental Organizations International Conference on Human Rights (Paris: 15 September 1968), 4. See Josiah Cobbah and Munyanzwe Hamalengwa, "The Human Rights Literature on Africa: A Bibliography," Human Rights Quarterly 8, no. 1 (February 1986):115-25.34 Ibid., 12.35 Quoted in Development, Human Rights and the Rule of Law, 5.From Faith in Human Rights: Support in Religious Traditions for a Global Struggle (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1991). |
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