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Balancing state sovereignty and the protection of human rights: a case study on the impact of the requirements of state consent and the exercise of political will on the functioning of the human rights systems of the African Union and the Southern African Development Community

In recent decades, achieving the goal of the global protection of human rights has been approached most commonly through multilateralism. States have since abandoned notions of self-reliance in favour of interdependency and collaboration, leading to a proliferation of international, regional, and su...

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Main Author: Kunaka, Sheryl
Other Authors: Woolaver, Hannah
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Public Law 2022
Subjects:
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access_status_str Open Access
author Kunaka, Sheryl
author2 Woolaver, Hannah
author_browse Kunaka, Sheryl
Woolaver, Hannah
author_facet Woolaver, Hannah
Kunaka, Sheryl
author_sort Kunaka, Sheryl
collection Thesis
description In recent decades, achieving the goal of the global protection of human rights has been approached most commonly through multilateralism. States have since abandoned notions of self-reliance in favour of interdependency and collaboration, leading to a proliferation of international, regional, and sub-regional multilateral organizations. However, the definition of ‘multilateralism' restricts the application of the legal frameworks of these organizations to sovereign states that have voluntarily consented to be bound by the obligations contained therein. State consent and political will drive multilateralism, and the requirement of voluntariness in these forms has been utilised as a means of respecting the internationally recognized legal principle of state sovereignty. Consequently, voluntariness has impacted the effective functioning of organizations such as the African Union (‘AU') and the Southern African Development Community (‘SADC'). This thesis proposes that the less significant the impact of voluntariness is on a regional or sub-regional human rights system, the more effective it will be in its role of protecting human rights. This thesis provides practical ways of lessening the impact of voluntariness, in order to strengthen the human rights legal frameworks of the AU and the SADC; and to improve the functioning of their respective compliance mechanisms. This thesis achieves the aforementioned by drawing from the systems' European and African regional and sub-regional counterparts.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:32:36.207Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2022
publishDateRange 2022
publishDateSort 2022
publisher Department of Public Law
publisherStr Department of Public Law
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/35739 Balancing state sovereignty and the protection of human rights: a case study on the impact of the requirements of state consent and the exercise of political will on the functioning of the human rights systems of the African Union and the Southern African Development Community Kunaka, Sheryl Woolaver, Hannah Human Rights Law In recent decades, achieving the goal of the global protection of human rights has been approached most commonly through multilateralism. States have since abandoned notions of self-reliance in favour of interdependency and collaboration, leading to a proliferation of international, regional, and sub-regional multilateral organizations. However, the definition of ‘multilateralism' restricts the application of the legal frameworks of these organizations to sovereign states that have voluntarily consented to be bound by the obligations contained therein. State consent and political will drive multilateralism, and the requirement of voluntariness in these forms has been utilised as a means of respecting the internationally recognized legal principle of state sovereignty. Consequently, voluntariness has impacted the effective functioning of organizations such as the African Union (‘AU') and the Southern African Development Community (‘SADC'). This thesis proposes that the less significant the impact of voluntariness is on a regional or sub-regional human rights system, the more effective it will be in its role of protecting human rights. This thesis provides practical ways of lessening the impact of voluntariness, in order to strengthen the human rights legal frameworks of the AU and the SADC; and to improve the functioning of their respective compliance mechanisms. This thesis achieves the aforementioned by drawing from the systems' European and African regional and sub-regional counterparts. 2022-02-18T08:45:49Z 2022-02-18T08:45:49Z 2021 2022-02-17T07:58:47Z Master Thesis Masters LLM http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35739 eng application/pdf Department of Public Law Faculty of Law
spellingShingle Human Rights Law
Kunaka, Sheryl
Balancing state sovereignty and the protection of human rights: a case study on the impact of the requirements of state consent and the exercise of political will on the functioning of the human rights systems of the African Union and the Southern African Development Community
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Balancing state sovereignty and the protection of human rights: a case study on the impact of the requirements of state consent and the exercise of political will on the functioning of the human rights systems of the African Union and the Southern African Development Community
title_full Balancing state sovereignty and the protection of human rights: a case study on the impact of the requirements of state consent and the exercise of political will on the functioning of the human rights systems of the African Union and the Southern African Development Community
title_fullStr Balancing state sovereignty and the protection of human rights: a case study on the impact of the requirements of state consent and the exercise of political will on the functioning of the human rights systems of the African Union and the Southern African Development Community
title_full_unstemmed Balancing state sovereignty and the protection of human rights: a case study on the impact of the requirements of state consent and the exercise of political will on the functioning of the human rights systems of the African Union and the Southern African Development Community
title_short Balancing state sovereignty and the protection of human rights: a case study on the impact of the requirements of state consent and the exercise of political will on the functioning of the human rights systems of the African Union and the Southern African Development Community
title_sort balancing state sovereignty and the protection of human rights a case study on the impact of the requirements of state consent and the exercise of political will on the functioning of the human rights systems of the african union and the southern african development community
topic Human Rights Law
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/35739
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