This thesis is an immanent critique of the African human rights system. It, therefore, examines the practice of human rights as set by the African people as opposed to purely external transcendental forms of critique. This is carried out by studying the theory of the African regional human rights system as presented in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights 1986, and then evaluating the practice to determine its consistency with the theory of rights contained in the Charter. Evaluation of the practice is achieved through necessary references to State Reports, Concluding Observations, NGO statements and rapporteur reports. Further assessments on the consistency between the theory and practice of such rights take into consideration the practicality of the normative standards as well as the challenges of implementation. As an immanent critique, the research evaluates identified discrepancies and tensions between theory and practice with the aim of ideally resolving these through proposed policy and other reforms. The originality of the research is hinged on the adopted approach which affords a holistic assessment of the African human rights system. This translates into concrete findings on the actual practice of the Charter and informed reform proposals based upon a thorough critical evaluation of these findings. The research, therefore, makes a case for an assessment of human rights in Africa based on the continent’s internal standards as represented by the African Charter. It is shown, through this approach, that there are a number of discrepancies between theory and practice such that the regional system often, wholly or partially, fails in its implementation of human rights even when its actions are assessed by distinctly African standards. It is argued that these theory/practice discrepancies are occasioned by three convergent challenges namely the lack of adequate cooperation from member states, practical socio-economic and cultural challenges, and institutional ineffectiveness. The research argues that, unless these challenges are adequately addressed, the practice of human rights in the continent will continue to fall short of the expectations generated by the African Charter.

The research is informed by the post-modernist theoretical framework. This framework is chosen because of its dynamic and eclectic epistemology which allows the study to identify the experiences of a group of African Caribbean people within the British education system. It also explores the patterns of experiences among three African Caribbean generations in Preston. The study seeks to explain the relative success of minority African Caribbean people in the education system. Data was gathered from questionnaire, interviews along with ethnographic observations from local secondary school and participation in seminars and conferences. The tools used to analyse the data employs the use of both quantitative and qualitative methods. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) is used to analyse the survey data while Nvivo is used to analyse the interviews conducted. Both packages yielded significant results. The research concludes that while racism remains a widespread educational experience among the three generations of African Caribbean people studied, a great disparity of achievement also exists at different levels of educational success. While the second generation tops the success rates of educational attainment, the third generation fared abysmally. The research found that the length of African Caribbean peoples' stay in Britain does not correlate with their educational success. There is a social stratum within the African Caribbean community which mimics the host society; those from the middle class families tend to account for the largest rate of educational success in the English education system. The research also concludes that whilst living in semi urban environments does not guarantee educational success, in comparison it is even far worse for African Caribbean people living in deprived inner city council estates to achieve success in the educational system. The research proposes significant recommendations for policy makers, Local Education Authorities, schools, teachers, and the African Caribbean community especially parents to work together to promote educational success among African Caribbean people.