Socio-economic rights in Africa: a critical evaluation of legal protection mechanisms and Implementation strategies

Abstract

There is an emerging broad consensus that civil and political rights on the one hand, and socio-economic rights on the other, are ingenerated and indivisible. Taken together, they embody the cardinal norms which inform modem human rights systems as expressed through the lntemational Bill of Rights as well as other innovative human rights instruments. ln spite of this agreement about the normative structure and relationship between the two categories of lights, it is common knowledge that within the province of intonational relations, the focus of African states and, to some considerable extent, transnational entities, has predominantly been on civil and political rights. So too have the monitoring activities of most African human rights non-govemmental organisations been confined to this same set of rights. Although a few African human rights groups are seeking to change this approach, the overall trend remains significantly unaltered. The fall-out of the above phenomenon is the devaluation of socio-economic rights in Africa. This study attempts to analyse the crisis of implementing socio-economic rights standards in Africa, flowing from the attitudinal patterns of states as well as non-state actors in downgrading the obligations of states in this regard. Applying a generalised but qualitative sampling strategy across Africa, this study examines the impact of intonational and regional socio-economic rights instruments at domestic levels. A central concern is demonstrated in this study for the role of the civil society in evolving pragmatic strategies, within the applicable legal framework, to hold African states accountable to the people for the performance of their obligations. The study also explores the possibility of galvanising intonational, regional and domestic human rights instruments towards the attainment of an enhanced regime of socio-economic rights in Africa, and the ultimate improvement of the qualig of the lives of the most vulnerable people all over Africa. Extrapolating from the dynamic interplay of legal protection mechanisms and implementation strategies, as we!! as the problematics involved therein, this study proffers viable trajectories for concerted activism at the levels of the civil society in Africa.