"Furthermore, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) has been proposed as a key element of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). The APRM is said to be the most remarkable innovation in the AU and the NEPAD framework designed to promote good governance and human rights. Its central purpose is to ensure the compliance of African states with the standards and practices of governance contained in the Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance (Durban Declaration). Although the APRM has been welcomed by a large number of development actors, there are also some doubts as to this mechanism working in the context of Africa. One of the main reasons for such reservations is that peer review on political governance has never been tested elsewhere before. ... The study is structured into five chapters. This first chapter serves as an introduction and has described the context of this paper by giving the background and general structure of the paper. Chapter two will briefly define the notion of peer review, highligting the founding context and the process of the APRM itself. This summary is necessary for a proper understanding of the paper. Chapter three will endeavor to point out the human rights aspects in the APRM, that is, the substance and potential of the mechanism for human rights protection and promotion, including references to international human rights instruments. Chapter four is a proposal for giving the APRM the best prospect for success; this will include adopting a 'population-based approach', meaning that the citizens are central part and owners of the process of the evaluation of government policies. Such ownership should produce a more realistic evaluation of the outcomes of public policies. Finally, chapter five will conclude this study by providing some recommendations as to how to ensure that APRM is a tool that guarantees human rights." -- Introduction. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2004. / Prepared under the supervision of Doctor Enid Hill, Chair of the Department of Political Science, American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

"The New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) is an African Union (AU) mandated programme whose main focus is to address key social, economic, and political issues for the African continent. Within the NEPAD programme and vision is the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), which has been described as a system of self-assessment, constructive peer dialogue, persuasion, and sharing of experience among member states of the African Union. The APRM is the execution mechanism for NEPAD, whose mandate is to monitor the preformance of states in different programme areas including human rights. The mandate on human rights monitoring falls within the political governance component of the NEPAD Declaration on Democracy, Political, Economic and Corporate Governance (NEPAD Declaration). The APRM has been introduced with a human rights monitoring component in a context where there already exist a number of other human rights mechanisms and institutions such as the African Commission. The proposed processes of the APRM in monitoring human rights in some ways resemble those of the African Commission while at the same time there are major differences between these mechanisms. For example, while the Africa Commission is a quasi-judicial body, which engages in legal processes, the APRM is a political process where heads of state are among the main actors. Some analysts have expressed the view that the creation of the APRM as a political process adds a vital component to the human rights monitoring in Africa which, since the creation of the African Commission, has remained purely legal and thus had limited success in ensuring human rights protection in Africa. While some have shared their doubt over the added value and role of the APRM in human rights monitoring, others have hailed it for providing a forum where heads of state will make political commitments for the protection of human rights. In this regard, the aim of this study is to analyse the role that the APRM will play in human rights monitoring in Africa. This analysis is done in relation to the work that is being done by the African Commission and the challenges that it has confonted over the years. In analysing the role of the APRM in human rights monitoring, this study unpacks the concept of peer review and analyse its practical implementation in Africa, especially in the field of human rights. This study also explores the implications on human rights protection and promotion of the co-existence of the African Commission and the APRM. ... Chapter 1 states the research questions/hypothesis, objectives of the study, relevance of study and literature review. It also looks at the scope and limitations of the study. Chapter 2 gives background information to the concept of peer review, how it is used in ensuring compliance with set standards by states and organisation. An analysis of the use of peer review by other international organisations is done. Further it gives an analysis of the APRM with a specific focus on its human rights monitoring role. Chapter 3 provides a brief background of the African Commission, its mandate and the challenges confronting it in its work. Thereafter there is an analysis of the challenges of the APRM in human rights monitoring and protection. Furthermore, the chapter critically analyses and evaluates peer review and its application in human rights monitoring in Africa. This chapter also highlights the similarities, overlaps and differences in the work and mandate of the APRM and the African Commission. Chapter 4 is the concluding chapter, which also provides recommendations for enhancing the efficiency and the co-operation of the APRM and the African Commission." -- Chapter 1. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2003. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

"The promotion and protection of human rights is important both at the national and international level. However, at the national level, several factors including government excesses tend to negatively affect the status of implementation of human rights. This has led to national human rights situations being measured against international standards. In this regard, different strategies have been developed to ensure compliance with international norms, the most basic of which is that of state reporting. ... This procedure is found in international and regional human rights instruments. Examples are treaties in the United Nations (UN), European, Inter-American and African human rights systems. In the African system, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights is the core human rights instrument. The African Charter is seen as a 'unique' document that represents the 'African' concept of rights. ... Under article 1 of the Charter, state parties undertake to adopt legislative and other measures to give effect to the rights in the Charter. Article 62 obliges each state party to submit every two years, from the date the Charter comes into force, a report on the legislative or other measures taken with a view to giving effect to the rights and freedoms recognised and guaranteed by the Charter. The organ responsible for evaluation of reports is the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (African Commission). ... It should be noted from the outset that the African Commission's competence to ensure effective implementation of the African Charter by member states has been affected due to various problems affecting the state reporting system. The most endemic of these include infrequent and inadequate reporting. ... Chapter one introduces the study, the framework of the problem that the study seeks to address and the methodology to be employed. Chapter two discusses the concept of state reporting, how the system works under the African Charter and the challenges therein. A comparative analysis of other international and regional reporting systems is also made with the chief objective of identifying how they deal with state reporting problems. Chapter three presents an overview of the APRM which includes an analysis of the human rights aspects of the mechanism. Chapter four critically analyses how the APRM can be utilised to help the African Commission address the problems of infrequent and inadequate reporting under the African Charter, and chapter five contains the conclusion and recommendations of the study." -- Introduction. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2006. / Prepared under the supervision of Dr. Alejandro Lorite at the Department of Law, American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/academic_pro/llm1/dissertations.html / Centre for Human Rights / LLM