Book review L. Chenwi and T. Soboka Bulta (eds.): Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations from an African Perspective

Abstract

In an era in which doubt has been cast over the international legal discipline’s internationalist credentials, scholarship which addresses alternative perceptions and conceptions of international law in the non-West deserves our full attention. In this context, we welcome Lilian Chenwi and Takele Soboka Bulto’s collection on ‘Extraterritorial Human Rights Obligations from an African Perspective’, which highlights the destructive human rights impacts of states’ acts, decisions, and omissions outside their territory, and makes a convincing doctrinal case that extraterritorial obligations (ETOs) can legally be based on the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR). This is a carefully edited collection which forms a coherent whole. The individual contributions are well-written and contain a wealth of doctrinal insights and empirical information. The editors and contributors deserve particular credit for highlighting the ETO potential of the ACHPR, the refined reasoning of the African Commission (largely unknown outside Africa), and the extant and potential interactions between the African human rights system and other regional or universal systems. The voices of the new generation of African (and Africa-minded) scholars who have contributed to this volume deserve a wide audience.