The contexts, challenges and prospects for human rights in Africa have changed quite considerably in recent years. Human rights discourses find favour in both political and popular circles, among the ideologues of the state and the interlocutors of civil society, a tribute to the enduring and unfulfilled yearnings for more humane societies deeply rooted in African collective memories and social psyches, and to the remarkable changes that have already taken place in Africa’s human rights landscapes. Contemporary Africa is a complex tapestry of contrasts in which human rights, as rhetoric and reality, has never been more pronounced and yet remains precarious as claims for and contestations over these rights persist and take new forms.
Today, more people enjoy more rights than ever before, but more people are also more aware of the limitations of Africa’s human rights regimes. Indeed, as the promoters of human rights have proliferated so have the perpetrators of abuses among state and civil society actors. The state no longer has a monopoly on vice, if it ever did, no more than civil society has a monopoly on virtue in the protection of human rights; both are as likely to undermine human rights as to uphold them. Similarly, the international arena is as much a source of inspiration and support as of much sorrow and grief. And the prospects for human rights in Africa remain firmly latched to the wobbly ox-cart of development.
In this article I to explore the recent changes that have occurred in Africa’s perennial struggle for human rights, i.e. the changing contexts of human rights regimes that have structured African political economies since the 1990s. Contemporary African politics is marked by many complex and contradictory dynamics, four of which can be singled out for particular attention, namely, democratisation, globalisation, regionalisation, and militarisation, whose impact on human rights is equally complex and contradictory. Singly and collectively these factors have simultaneously facilitated and forestalled the growth and pursuit of human rights and development in Africa.