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Full-Text Articles in Law
The African Human Rights Court: A Two-Legged Stool?, Makau Mutua
The African Human Rights Court: A Two-Legged Stool?, Makau Mutua
Journal Articles
This article examines the African continental human rights system that is built on the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. It pays particular attention to the deficits of that system and argues that the establishment of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights – a judicial body meant to strengthen the protection of human rights in Africa – falls far short. It exposes the normative and structural shortcomings that render the court virtually meaningless. It concludes that the court serves very little purpose except to address the enormous human rights challenges facing Africa.
Cultural Relativism And Cultural Imperialism In Human Rights Law, Guyora Binder
Cultural Relativism And Cultural Imperialism In Human Rights Law, Guyora Binder
Journal Articles
The "Universalism-Cultural Relativism" debate proceeds on the assumption that international human rights law requires the identification of fundamental principles of justice that transcend culture, society, and politics. Thus, the debate presumes that to assert the cultural relativity of justice is to deny the legitimacy of international human rights law. This comment challenges this presumed linkage between international human rights law and universally valid criteria of justice. Human rights standards are obviously culturally relative, and human rights law is obviously a Western institution. But so are the kind of states that human rights law sets out to restrain. The nation-state ideal …