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Analysing Objections to the UN Declaration on the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans

April 28, 2026

On 25 March 2026, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) adopted Resolution A/80/L.48 titled “Declaration on the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialised Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime Against Humanity”. 123 UN member states voted in favour, 3 (the United States, Israel, and Argentina) voted against, and 52 abstained. The abstaining states included all 27 EU member states, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Japan. The resolution was led by Ghana on behalf of the African Union and co-sponsored by all 54 AU member states. The Declaration is among the most consequential normative statements on slavery and reparatory justice adopted by the UNGA since the 2001 Durban Declaration. And it is a decisive shift from Durban’s carefully crafted subjunctive that acknowledged that the slave trade “should always have been” a crime against humanity (emphasis added), to a declarative assertion that it “is” the gravest crime against humanity. It invokes jus cogens, obligations erga omnes, and the forms of reparation from the ILC Articles on State Responsibility: apology, restitution, compensation,…

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Renewed State Backlash Against the African Court: Tunisia is the Fifth State to Withdraw Individual and NGO Access

May 23, 2025

The African Union’s continental human rights court, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (AfCHPR), received a setback this past March when Tunisia withdrew its declaration, under Article 34(6) of the Court’s founding Protocol, allowing individuals and NGOs to directly access the Court. Tunisia accounts for 24 (7%) of the 371 applications to the…

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The 2024 AU Common Position on the Application of International Law in the Cyberspace: Some Implications for the Development of Digital Human Rights

November 15, 2024

Introduction The African Union Peace and Security Council (PSC) has adopted in late January 2024 its much-anticipated and first-ever Common African Position on the Application of International Law to the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in Cyberspace (‘Common African Position’ or CAP). The CAP reflects the views of the AU’s 55 member States.

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The African Union’s Statement on the Application of International Law to Cyberspace: An Assessment of the Principles of Territorial Sovereignty, Non-Intervention, and Non-Use of Force

February 20, 2024

A growing number of States have published statements examining the application of international law to cyberspace (for an overview see the Cyber Law Toolkit). On 29 January 2024, the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council adopted the ‘Common African Position on the Application of International Law to the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in…

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The Common African Position on the Application of International Law in Cyberspace: Reflections on a Collaborative Lawmaking Process

February 5, 2024

On January 29, 2024, the African Union Peace and Security Council (PSC) unanimously adopted Communiqué 1196 (2024) pursuant to which it adopted the Common African Position on the Application of International Law to the Use of Information and Communication Technologies in the Cyberspace. The Common African Position (CAP) and all four Communiqués that the PSC adopted on this…

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