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Africa names judges for new human rights court
By Reuters' Nick Tattersall...

African foreign ministers have elected judges to preside over a new human rights court for the continent which legal experts expect will give individuals redress against government abuses, officials said on Sunday.


Delegates at an African Union meeting in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, agreed on 11 judges for the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, which will consider proceedings brought against states, although leaders are unlikely to be tried.


"It is the beginning of a pan-African judiciary. It is extremely important," said Irungu Houghton, Africa policy adviser for UK-based development group Oxfam.


"For a continent where there are endemic human rights violations it is very important that there is a machinery that can bring hope and redress to people in cases that are not responded to at a national level," he told Reuters.


The AU-funded court will be situated in East Africa, with Mauritius the most likely location, and should be in place by July with an initial annual budget of $2.25 million, said Ibrahima Kane, a legal expert who has been advising the AU.


"Like Europe, like the United States, Africa will now have a real regional judicial system," Kane told Reuters on the sidelines of the meeting in Khartoum.


"Individuals will now be able to have binding decisions taken against states on human rights issues and if the states do not comply, there will be a procedure for sanctions," he said.


The judges elected were from Ghana, Libya, Mali, Senegal, Uganda, Lesotho, Rwanda, South Africa, Burundi, Algeria and Burkina Faso, AU delegates said.


The court will not try high-profile cases such as those against former Chadian ruler Hissene Habre, accused by a Belgian court of overseeing mass murder and torture by his political police, or former Liberian president Charles Taylor, wanted by a court in Sierra Leone for war crimes.


African states, not individuals, could be hauled before the court if they have ratified its creation and could be forced for the first time to pay compensation to victims of abuse, legal experts say.


They say it will also give sharper teeth to international conventions on human rights, often ratified by African governments but then ignored in national legislation.


Progress has been slow since African justice ministers first recommended creating a rights court in 1997, largely because some ######### of state feared their own governments could have cases brought against them, human rights groups say.


The protocol establishing the court was agreed in January 2004 but so far only around 20 of the AU's 53 member states have ratified its creation