Although human rights NGOs (HURINGOs) have contributed to the institutionalisation of a human rights culture, the human rights discourse mainly focuses externally on the obligations of states and, more recently, of business. Little attention is paid to how HURINGOs manage their power and privileges within their internal governance, despite NGOs' growing influence, resources, scope and diversity. This thesis offers a theoretical interpretation of the experiences, challenges, dilemmas and lessons learnt by HURINGOs in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa to contribute to the evolving discourse of human rights theory and practice. It adopts a multi-disciplinary approach that articulates the human rights obligations of HURINGOs and their implications for governance, arguing that the improved governance of NGOs is critical to the strengthening of the human rights movement. While upholding the dominant legal liberalism school which underlines that the state is the main human rights duty bearer and legal systems are critical to the enforcement of rights, it utilises the sociology of law discourse that conceptualises human rights as a normative principle to contain abuse of power. Drawing from the rights-based approach which is aimed at holding all actors accountable for the human rights implications of their actions, it evaluates how HURINGOs have applied the human rights principles and standards of: (i) express linkage to and mainstreaming of rights; (ii) accountability and transparency; (iii) participation and inclusion; and (iv) non¬discrimination, equity and empowerment in their governance and operations, as they demand of others. It is the mam contention of this study that HURINGOs have the obligation to empower themselves internally before they can champion the empowerment of others. This entails being knowledgeable in the area of work; forging linkages with broader civil society and academia, building on the positive cultural values that resonate with human rights to stimulate mass support and balancing the different accountabilities to the law, boards, membership, self-regulatory mechanisms, public and donors. Further HURINGO have the obligation to safeguard the autonomy of their mission; have transparent and participatory processes to enhance collective strength, legitimacy and ownership of consensus decisions; as well as promote and demand equal and equitable relationships based on mutual respect, shared responsibility and achievements while simultaneously enabling the weaker party to act on their own. Although a higher responsibility is placed on HURINGOs to respect human rights values, all NGOs irrespective of how they define themselves have to mainstream human rights in their work. This is because all NGOs exist in the public trust and work to promote human dignity and societal wellbeing. They must lead by example. Applying the human rights principles to NGOs enhances their moral legitimacy to measure up to the challenges of being a watchdog of the governance process and custodians of the better promotion and protection of human rights. Significantly, it advances the credibility of human rights to offer protection from any abuse of power. / Thesis (LLD)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Centre for Human Rights / unrestricted

No abstract available. / Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / gm2014 / Centre for Human Rights / UPonly

This thesis argues that the International Criminal Court (ICC) brings a new more deontological paradigm to international interventions, founded upon the universal application of legal principle, and displacing consequentialist notions of justice linked to human rights. Based upon the Court’s Statute and mode of operations, it is argued that this is associated with assumptions concerning the ICC’s primacy, military enforcement, and theory of change. The consequences of this development in volatile contexts are demonstrated. The case study, founded upon analysis from the war-affected community, examines the impact of the International Criminal Court in the Lord’s Resistance Army war, and reveals the relationship between criminal justice enforcement, and community priorities for peace and human rights. On the basis of evidence, and contrary to narratives repeated but unsubstantiated in the literature, it demonstrates that in this case these two imperatives were in opposition to one another. The Court’s pursuit of retributive legal principle was detrimental to the community’s interests in peace and human rights. The subsequent failure of the ICC’s review process to interrogate this important issue is also established. The research establishes that statutory and operational assumptions upon which Court interventions are based do not hold in volatile contexts. For the case study community and elsewhere, this has had adverse impacts, with significant implications for the ICC. The findings indicate that if these issues are not fundamentally addressed, principled international criminal justice enforcement in volatile environments will continue to have profoundly negative human rights consequences.

On 18 November 2010, the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) held that legal reforms adopted by Senegal in 2007 to incorporate international crimes into the national Penal Code to enable its domestic courts to prosecute Hissene Habre for, among others, crimes against humanity committed in Chad twenty years before, violated the principle of legality, specifically the principle against non-retroactivity of criminal law. The court held that such crimes could be prosecuted only by a hybrid tribunal with the jurisdiction to try Habre for the international crimes based on general principles of law common to the community of nations. Some scholars opined that the ECOWAS decision was wrong, stating that the crimes in question were criminalised already under international law and that Senegal‟s legal reforms simply served jurisdictional purposes. Given that, as a core component of the principle of legality, the role of non-retroactivity is to prohibit the creation of new crimes and their application to past conduct, the opinions of such scholars may hold true. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2011. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / nf2012 / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

This thesis argues that the International Criminal Court (ICC) brings a new more deontological paradigm to international interventions, founded upon the universal application of legal principle, and displacing consequentialist notions of justice linked to human rights. Based upon the Court’s Statute and mode of operations, it is argued that this is associated with assumptions concerning the ICC’s primacy, military enforcement, and theory of change. The consequences of this development in volatile contexts are demonstrated. The case study, founded upon analysis from the war-affected community, examines the impact of the International Criminal Court in the Lord’s Resistance Army war, and reveals the relationship between criminal justice enforcement, and community priorities for peace and human rights. On the basis of evidence, and contrary to narratives repeated but unsubstantiated in the literature, it demonstrates that in this case these two imperatives were in opposition to one another. The Court’s pursuit of retributive legal principle was detrimental to the community’s interests in peace and human rights. The subsequent failure of the ICC’s review process to interrogate this important issue is also established. The research establishes that statutory and operational assumptions upon which Court interventions are based do not hold in volatile contexts. For the case study community and elsewhere, this has had adverse impacts, with significant implications for the ICC. The findings indicate that if these issues are not fundamentally addressed, principled international criminal justice enforcement in volatile environments will continue to have profoundly negative human rights consequences.