Open Access
Intractable problems of human rights
Edited by Thoko Kaime & Bonolo Dinokopila
2025
ISBN: 978-1-0672373-3-2
Pages: 281
Print version: Available
Electronic version: Free PDF available
About the publication
Despite tremendous strides in the legal and institutional protection of human rights in Africa, which has seen the African Union champion the ever-growing framework of treaties and institutions dedicated to human rights protection, many African citizens still suffer the yoke of human rights abuses. In some cases, their situations seem worse than they were before the advent of widespread constitutional protection. Despite the establishment of these extensive legal frameworks, why do human rights violations still persist on a large scale? The chapters in this book address this core question by focusing on three intractable problems of human rights, which are defined by the seeming impossibility of resolving them.
Table of Contents
Contributors
List of abbreviations and acronyms
Cases, legislation & international instruments
1 Introduction: Intractable problems of human rights – Law, legitimacy and the limits of protection
Bonolo Dinokopila & Thoko Kaime
2 The human as an intractable problem of the law: A critical appraisal
Isabelle Zundel & Serawit Debele
3 Revisiting the role of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights in eradicating child labour in Africa
Shyreen Chirwa & Thoko Kaime
5 Contextual dilemmas for a human rights approach to child labour protections in Malawi
Alan Msosa
6 Human trafficking: The approach of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child
Robert Nanima & Thoko Kaime
7 Human trafficking ‘disguised’ as labour externalisation? Revisiting the law and practice in East Africa
Petro Protas & Thoko Kaime
8 Policy versus reality within the African anti-human trafficking architecture: The case of Kenyan domestic workers in modern slavery in Saudi Arabia
Milka Wahu & Thoko Kaime
9 The challenge of legalistic approach to protecting the rights of trafficking victims in South Africa
Richard Obinna Iroanya
10 Normalisation of intersex persons through ‘conversion practices’ in East Africa – Building on the ‘indigenous’ way forward
Milka Wahu & Shelmith Gatwiri Maranya
11 The personal is still political: Sexual orientation, gender identity and the politics of law making in Africa
Bonolo Dinokopila & Thoko Kaime
12 Untangling intractable human rights problems: Extracts from panel discussions
Gift Gawanani Mauluka