Case Note: The Right to Self-Determination and the Politics of Compatibility with the African Charter and AU Constitutive Act (ACHPR Communications 266/03 and 650/17)

Ruddy Fualefeh Morfaw Azanu (LLD Candidate, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria)

Published: 05/01/2026

Abstract:

Although increasingly claimed by litigants against state parties to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter), the right to self-determination under its Art 20 has hardly embraced a solid interpretation by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission), as regards the extent of its enforcement. The complexity surrounding the compatibility of its claim in relation to the African Charter and the African Union Constitutive Act has in the last decade led to two fundamentally opposing and controversial decisions of the African Commission involving similar issues and the same state party - Cameroon. The question therefore is, what justified these opposing reasonings and what is the judicial implication of this conflicting interpretation of the right to self-determination and Compatibility under the Charter?