The Second Meeting of Legal Experts from Member States on the Draft AU Convention for the Prevention of Internal Displacement and the Protection of and Assistance to Internally Displaced Persons in Africa was recently held in Addis Ababa. NGO commentary on the draft is available here. (The First Meeting of Legal Experts was held in December 2007, but proved an insufficient amount of time to fully review the convention text.)
The aim is for the draft convention to be endorsed at a Special Summit on Forced Displacement, to be held in November 2008. Participants in a joint African Union/ICRC seminar on internal displacement (May 2008) also made several recommendations that will be conveyed to heads of state attending the special summit.
For some background on these matters, read Chaloka Beyani's Recent Developments in the Treatment and Protection of Internally Displaced Persons (April 2006). (A more complete article was published in the Journal of African Law; read the abstract for more information.)
Posted in Events and Publications.
The AU Convention on Internal Displacement could be the very "key-factor" to harmonize the African approach to the "IDPs'issue".
ReplyDeleteOn 19-23 October 2009 (UNHCR, Newsletter of the UNHCR Representation to the AU and ECA (RAUECA) the next AU meeting focused on the adoption of the Convention should be held on behalf of the IDPs. Notwithstanding the fact that such an improvement could be the beginning of a new "era" for the African IDPs issue, I apprehend that the political view will prevail on the human rights. Another weak point could be the sovereignty issue. Should such an issue win, the AU knew a very meaningful defeat (both for the organization and the African peoples).
In as much as wefeel that this is a land mark step towards the protection and assistance of IDPs there is still a long way to go. But so far the African continent has within a short time come up with an initiative which if successful, and it will be, is meant to be a record breaking attempt at giving Africa solutions to African problems, we shall see how the specila summit here in Kampala goes, but Iam hoping that we will at least tackle a good part of the problem even though 'sovereignty' might still pose a problem
ReplyDeleteOlivia L pretoria
so far the struggle continues but Iam more interested in how the governments propose to deal with the soverignity issue, and also the 'containment' argument that seems to fall at the core of the focus on IDPs
ReplyDelete