This volume is an attempt to provide this intersectional and reflexive space. The thinking behind the book began in Lamu in mid-2010. It was a time when growing community resistance emerged towards the Kenyan government's plan to build a second seaport under a trans-frontier infrastructural project known as the Lamu Port- South Sudan-Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET). The editors agreed that a book that draws community activists, academics, researchers and policy makers into a discussion of the predicament of indigenous rights and development against the backdrop of the Endorois case was timely and needed. Assembled here are the original contributions of some of the leading contemporary thinkers in the area of indigenous and human rights in Africa. The book is an interdisciplinary effort with the single purpose of thinking through indigenous rights after the Endorois case but it is not a singular laudatory remark on indigenous life in Africa. The discussion begins by framing indigenous rights and claims to indigeneity as found in the Endorois decision and its related socio-political history. Subsequent chapters provide deeper contextual analysis by evaluating the tense relationship between indigenous peoples and the post-colonial nation-state. Overall, the book makes a peering and provocative contribution to the relational interests between state policies and the developmental intersections of indigeneity, indigenous rights, gender advocacy, environmental conservation, chronic trauma and transitional justice.

This book is concerned with the first peoples (those people who are considered indigenous by themselves and others) of southern Africa such as the San, the Nama, and the Khoi, and their rights. Although living in democratic countries like Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Botswana --and in principle sharing the same rights and responsibilities as the rest of the population--practice shows that these peoples more often than not are at the margins of the societies in which they live; they often face extreme poverty, and they frequently are subjected to discriminatory treatment and exposed to all kinds of human rights abuses. Robert K. Hitchcock is professor of anthropology and geography at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA. He has done extensive research and development work in southern Africa in general and among San peoples in particular. Diana Vinding is an anthropologist working with the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) in Copenhagen.

xts across Africa, Asia, the Middle East, North & South America and Oceania.

This handbook will be a comprehensive interdisciplinary overview of indigenous peoples’ rights. Chapters by experts in the field will examine legal, philosophical, sociological and political issues, addressing a wide range of themes at the heart of debates on the rights of indigenous peoples. The book will address not only the major questions, such as ‘who are indigenous peoples? What is distinctive about their rights? How are their rights constructed and protected? What is the relationship between national indigenous rights regimes and international norms? but also themes such as culture, identity, genocide, globalization and development, rights institutionalization and the environment.

This book provides a comprehensive and analytical overview of human rights law in Africa. It examines the institutions, norms, and processes for human rights realization provided for under the United Nations system, the African Union, and sub-regional economic communitites in Africa, and explores their relationship with the national legal systems of African states. Since the establishment of the African Union in 2001, there has been a proliferation of regional institutions that are relevant to human rights in Africa. These include the Pan African Parliament, the Peace and Security Council, the Economic, Social and Cultural Council and the African Peer Review Mechanism of the New Partnership for Africa's Development. This book discusses the links between these institutions. It further examines the case law stemming from Africa' most important human rights instrument, the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, which entered into force on 21 October 1986. This new edition contains a new chapter on the African Children's Rights Committee as well as full coverage of new developments and instruments, such as the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the Convention on Enforced Disappearances, and the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance. Three cross-cutting themes are explored throughout the book: national implementation and enforcement of international human rights law; legal and other forms of integration; and the role of human rights in the eradication of poverty. The book also provides an introduction to the relevant human rights concepts.

The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) is the principle regional human rights treaty for the African continent. Adopted in 1981, there is now a significant body of jurisprudence and interpretation by its African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and the recently established African Court. This volume provides a comprehensive article-by-article legal analysis of the provisions of the Charter as it draws upon the documents adopted by the African Commission, including resolutions, case law, and concluding observations. Where relevant, case law adopted by the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, and that of other sub-regional courts and tribunals and domestic courts in Africa, are also incorporated. The book examines not only the substantive rights in the African Charter but also the work of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and provides a full examination of its mandate. A critical analysis of each of the provisions of the ACHPR is led principally by the jurisprudence and documentation of the African Commission and African Court. The text also identifies the overall development of the ACHPR within the broader regional and international human rights legal arena.

The African human rights system has undergone some remarkable developments since the adoption of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the cornerstone of the African human rights system, in June 1981. The year 2011 marked the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the African Charter. It also marked 25 years since the African Charter entered into force on 21 October 1986. This book aims to provide reflections on most of the major human rights issues in the past 30 years of the African human rights system in practice and discussion on the future: the African Charter’s impact and contribution to the respect, protection and promotion of human rights in Africa; the contemporary challenges faced by the African Human rights system in responding adequately to the demands of rapidly evolving African societies; and how the African human rights system can be strengthened in the future to ensure that the human rights protected in the African Charter, as developed in the jurisprudence of the African Commission since the Commission was inaugurated in 1987, are realised in practice. The chapters in this volume bring together the work of 20 human rights scholars and practitioners, with expertise in human rights in Africa, under the following general themes: rights and duties in the African Charter; rights of the vulnerable under the African system; implementation mechanisms for human rights in Africa; and towards an effective African regional human rights system.

The relationship between human rights and the environment, as evidenced by the recent UN Resolution on the human right to a healthy environment, is a topical, fascinating, uneasy, and increasingly urgent one. This timely collection explores the inextricable relationship between human rights and the environment as a critical lens for understanding and addressing key human rights and environmental issues confronting Africa. The work explores theoretical, philosophical, doctrinal, and empirical research to interrogate and provide clarity on how and whether the human rights-based approach to environmental protection and policy implications has been effective in enhancing environmental protection and sustainability in Africa. It brings together an elite group of African and international experts to investigate the increasing connectivity and problems with African human rights, environmental governance, and the quest for sustainability. The book is divided into thematic clusters, including: the right of vulnerable communities to sustainability; climate change, the right to development and natural resource governance; corporate environmental responsibility and sustainability; the philosophy of environmental ethics and theories of human rights approaches to environmental governance; procedural environmental rights; the role of the judiciary in environmental protection; and desertification. These themes provide a structure to investigate and clarify specific fundamental questions on Africa’s environmental governance paradigm. This innovative contribution provides an interdisciplinary approach to the philosophical interrelationship and use of human rights approaches to ensure and enhance environmental protection and sustainability. As such, the book will be of interest to African scholars, researchers and students in Human Rights Law, Environmental Studies, Political Science, Ecology and Conservation and Development Studies. It will also be a valuable resource for policymakers, governments, NGOs, practitioners, and all those interested in African environmental governance.