The Concept of HUMAN RIGHTS in Africa (Second Edition)
The Concept of Human Rights in Africa attempts to reconceptualise human rights ideology from the stand point of the working people of the continent. lt argues that the dominant human rights discourse in/and on Africa, however well-intentioned, is objectively a part of the ideologies of domination. Both the critique of the dominant discourse as well as the reconceptualisation are located firmly within the current social science and jurisprudential debates on democratic struggles in Africa. Hitherto, the human rights debate in Africa has been an exclusive preserve of lawyers and philosophers. Professor Shivji breaks new ground in this book in that he firmly anchors the debate on the social and political planes without losing sight of its legal and philosophical dimensions.
While greatly stimulating for the general reader, this work can be fruitfully used in colleges and universities in such academic disciplines as sociology, political science, development studies, law, and jurisprudence.
Issa Shivji is Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He taught law at the University of Dar es Salaam for 36 years (1970-2006). He was appointed the first Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Professor in Pan-Africanism between 2008-2013. He was the Director of the Nyerere Resource Centre at the Commission for Science and Technology (2014- 2019). He has published over a dozen books and numerous book chapters and articles. His latest book is a three-volume biography of Julius Nyerere called Development as Rebellion co-authored with other two colleagues.
ISBN 978 2 38234 100 1
CODESRIA 2023
Human Rights, Regionalism and democracy in Africa (Printed)
Human Rights, Regionalism and democracy in Africa (Printed)
It has often been argued that the concept of human rights is an artefact of modern Western civilisation, that human rights in the South are privileges conferred. These approaches have taken little cognisance of the place accorded to the societal rights held in such esteem as complementary to individual rights in traditional African society. In contrast, this study argues that human rights in Africa are as much about the dignity of Africans as about the commitments of others towards them. It argues for a critical defence of universal human rights within a multicultural framework. From historical perspectives, it illustrates how the slave trade, and then colonialism undermined the traditional balance of individual and societal rights.
The work further traces the rise and fall and rise again of the human rights agenda in the post-independence period. It discusses the achievements of the African Commission and the African Union, and suggests ways of strengthening the human rights framework on the continent. The book came out of a conference that took place in Uppsala, Sweden in 2004 involving practitioners, scholars and activists in the field of human tights in Africa.