SADC, SADC Tribunal and Human Rights

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Human Rights, SADC and the SADC Tribunal

By Tazorora TG  Musarurwa LLB, LLM 

Introduction

Human rights have become an integral part of our daily lives that it is rather impossible to find a single person who cannot tell you something about what they think human rights are. They have also become such a topical subject that it is no longer plausible to simply dismiss them as a Western phenomenon that has no business in Africa.

The history of the Southern African region, like most parts of Africa, has been a call for human rights. In pre-colonial times, the majority of people were denied basic political rights such as those pertaining to voting and fair trials. Black people’s movements were restricted by laws. In South Africa, the infamous Group Areas Act of 1950 divided the nation into areas by race and denied people of colour from building homes or establishing businesses in certain areas that were designated as ‘white areas’.

The region has also witnessed civil wars where the rules of war have taken a back seat and thousands of innocent civilians have been massacred by either of the sides fighting those wars. Furthermore, women have been subjected to a subservient role in their own lives and continue to be subject to the whims and caprices of their male counterparts.

There is without doubt an endless list of human rights abuses that have been inflicted on people within this region historically and that we continue to suffer up to this very day.

In spite of these considerations it is important to ponder whether SADC had a human rights agenda when it was established or at any point thereafter. Is SADC not simply a body meant to increase trade within the region and make it easier for its citizens to travel amongst the member states? If this be the case, then the Tribunal should surely be just a dispute resolution body meant to adjudicate upon some technical disputes that may arise within this integration process.

With all the above in mind, this short paper looks at what place human rights have within SADC’s agenda and whether the Tribunal has any business involving itself in the human rights terrain.

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The SADC Treaty

When the ten founding member states met in Windhoek, Namibia in 1992 to establish SADC by signing the SADC Treaty, they made it clear that human rights were part of the integration agenda. This is acknowledged by the preamble which states in part that

MINDFUL of the need to involve the people of the Region centrally in the process of development and integration, particularly through the guarantee of democratic rights, observance of human rights and the rule of law (my emphasis)

Article 49(c) further provides that member states shall act in accordance with the ...

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