Canada–AU human rights engagements: a TWAIL perspective

ABSTRACT

Despite the problematique of Global North/South relationships, human rights require transnational collaboration to successfully protect vulnerable people in the world. In particular, human rights engagements between Africa and the West are cemented in legacies of colonialism and mediated by development discourses that portray the continent as a paragon of poverty, corruption and backwardness. Within this context, we explore how an African Union (AU) human rights instrument could impact or transform Africa’s transnational human rights engagements. Specifically, we use Canada–Africa human rights engagements as a starting point and basis for analysing the nature, orientation and impacts of such engagements (especially over three salient issues). Situating Canada as allegorical for the West, our findings show that Canadian human rights actors are critical of colonial legacies, have faith in the AU’s leadership, and see the African Human Rights Action Plan as a potentially transformative instrument in human rights engagements in Africa.

RÉSUMÉ

Malgré la problématique des relations Nord/Sud, les droits humains nécessitent une collaboration transnationale pour protéger efficacement les personnes vulnérables dans le monde. En particulier, les engagements en matière de droits humains entre l’Afrique et l’Occident sont cimentés par l’héritage du colonialisme et médiatisés par des discours sur le développement qui dépeignent le continent comme un modèle de pauvreté, de corruption et d’arriération. Dans ce contexte, nous examinons comment un instrument des droits humains de l’Union africaine (UA) pourrait avoir un impact sur les engagements transnationaux de l’Afrique en matière de droits humains ou les transformer. Plus précisément, nous utilisons les engagements du Canada et de l’Afrique en matière de droits humains comme point de départ et comme base pour analyser la nature, l’orientation et les impacts de ces engagements (en particulier sur trois questions essentielles). En situant le Canada comme allégorie de l’Occident, nos résultats montrent que les acteurs canadiens des droits humains critiquent l’héritage colonial, croient au leadership de l’UA et considèrent le plan d’action africain pour les droits humains comme un instrument potentiellement transformateur dans les engagements en matière de droits de l’homme en Afrique.

KEYWORDS:

• Human rights
• African Union
• African Human Rights Action Plan
• postcolonial theory
• TWAIL

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Droits humains
• Union africaine
• Plan d’action africain pour les droits humains
• théorie postcoloniale
• TWAIL

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the research support of the following individuals: Kiana Blake, Feyisayo Oni and Akosua Phebih-Serwah. They are especially indebted to Dr Ibironke Odumosu-Ayanu for thoughtful engagements with the paper. They also thank interviewees and organizations for generously participating in the study. Finally, the authors acknowledge the generous funding support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) partnership development grant – The Research/Dissemination Network on Canada’s Human Rights Role in Sub-Saharan Africa (CARRISSA).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This is not to say that decolonization and the fight against colonization are not human rights issues. It is to speak to the AU’s broadened interests in protecting and expanding human rights discourse on the continent as much as fighting against external imperialism.

2. See the report by the African Commission of Human Rights (https://www.achpr.org/history).

3. This paper is drawn from a larger study – a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC)-funded partnership project that examined the development process and content of the AHRAP with the aim of creating an “academic-to-practitioner/policymaker-to-academic” feedback loop through the scholarly co-production of knowledge, among other aims.

4. Oyěwùmí (1997) further suggests that the category “woman” needs to be sufficiently interrogated for its problematic colonial assumptions as a stable and inferior gendered identity category.

5. Among others, the Aba women’s revolution in 1929 is a remarkable example.

6. This is not a comprehensive list of the programs Global Affairs has on the continent.

7. For instance, a focus on increasing and improving the productivity of women in low-income countries does little to address structural inequalities at the international political economy level which will ultimately exacerbate or reinforce the conditions of marginality for women.

8. Other instances of support include African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, General Comment No. 4 on the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights: The Right to Redress for Victims of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Punishment or Treatment (Article 5), Adopted at the 21^st Extra-ordinary Session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, held from 23 February to 4 March 2017 in Banjul, The Gambia – https://www.achpr.org/legalinstruments/detail?id = 60 [see articles 20 and 59]; and Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders in Africa, Reine Alapini-Gansou, Press Release on the Implication of the Same Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act 2013 on Human Rights Defenders in Nigeria (Banjul – 5 February 2014) – https://www.achpr.org/pressrelease/detail?id = 232.

9. Third-generation rights are those rights that deal with (broadly) development, the environment and issues of solidarity. They are captured in and by the Right to Development of the UN, adopted in 1986.

10. The Government of Canada has created an office for a Canadian Ombudsperson for Responsible Enterprise, who “receives and reviews claims of alleged human rights abuses arising from the operations of Canadian companies abroad in the mining, oil and gas, and garment sectors” (Government of Canada, n.d. f). This is a response to years of advocacy from grassroots and civil society organizations both in Canada and abroad. Three of our Canadian interviewees mentioned their involvement in the activism that eventually led to this.

11. In this model, the problem of “under-development” is laid on the doorstep of a “backward” primitive culture. Rostow outlines five stages of development, which essentially revolve around emulating a Western neoliberal industrialized model of economic progress. This model of development has been duly criticized for its racist and colonial agenda.

12. “We” in this context refers to the authors (who consider themselves both human rights scholars and advocates) as well as the community of human rights defenders, activists and advocates around the world who share the concerns of the authors as outlined in the paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes on contributors

Sylvia Bawa

Sylvia Bawa is an associate professor of sociology at York University. She is a global sociologist whose research interests revolve around the interconnections of globalization, structural inequality and discourses of culture and women’s rights in Africa. She researches, writes and teaches in the areas of human rights, postcolonial and Third World feminisms, critical development studies, women’s rights and empowerment and sociology of globalization and social change.

Obiora Chinedu Okafor

Obiora Chinedu Okafor is a full professor of law and York Research Chair in International and Transnational Legal Studies at the Osgoode Hall Law School, York University (Toronto, Canada). He is the UN Independent Expert on Human Rights and International Solidarity, and a former Chair of the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee.