The European Journal of International Law Vol. 27 no. 2
EJIL (2016), Vol. 27 No. 2, 293–328	 doi:10.1093/ejil/chw019
© The Author, 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of EJIL Ltd.
All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
Backlash against International
Courts in West, East and
Southern Africa: Causes and
Consequences
Karen J. Alter*, James T. Gathii** and
Laurence R. Helfer***
Abstract
This article discusses three credible attempts by African governments to restrict the jurisdiction
of three similarly situated sub-regional courts in response to politically controversial
rulings. In West Africa, when the Court of the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) upheld allegations of torture by opposition journalists in Gambia, that country’s
political leaders sought to restrict the Court’s power to review human rights complaints.
The other member states ultimately defeated Gambia’s proposal. In East Africa, Kenya failed
in its efforts to eliminate the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) and to remove some of
its judges after a decision challenging an election to a sub-regional legislature. However, the
*	 Professor of Political Science and Law at Northwestern University and Permanent Visiting Professor at
iCourts: Centre of Excellence for International Courts, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Email: kalter@northwestern.edu.
Earlier versions of this article were presented at the American Political Science
Association’s 2014 Conference, the American Society of International Law’s 2014 Research Forum, the
European Society of International Law’s 2015 Annual Meeting, Remin University Law School, Stanford
University’s International Relations Seminar and the University of California Los Angeles International
Relations/International Law Workshop.Thanks to Shai Dothan, Solomon Ebobrah, Eric Stover, Mihreteab
Tsige Taye and Erik Voeten for helpful comments on earlier drafts and to Kristina Alayan, Julienne Grant,
Ethan Blevins, James Simpson, Abraham Smith, SarahTishler, MihreteabTsingeTaye, Alison Wallace and
Chloe Bremer for excellent research assistance. We are also grateful for the financial support of iCourts:
The Center of Excellence for International Courts at the University of Copenhagen; the Danish National
Research Foundation, Grant no. DNRF105; the Equality, Development and Globalization Studies Center
at the Buffett Institute, Northwestern University; the Center for International and Comparative Law,
Duke University and Loyola University of Chicago Law School.
**	 Wing-Tat Lee Chair in International Law, Loyola University of Chicago, United States. Email: jgathii@luc.
edu.
***	 Harry R. Chadwick, Sr., Professor of Law, Duke University and Permanent Visiting Professor at iCourts:
Centre of Excellence for International Courts, University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Email: helfer@law.
duke.edu.
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294 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
member states agreed to restructure the EACJ in ways that have significantly affected the
Court’s subsequent trajectory. In Southern Africa, after the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) Tribunal ruled in favour of white farmers in disputes over land seizures,
Zimbabwe prevailed upon SADC member states to suspend the Tribunal and strip its power to
review complaints from private litigants.Variations in the mobilization efforts of community
secretariats, civil society groups and sub-regional parliaments explain why efforts to eliminate
the three courts or narrow their jurisdiction were defeated in ECOWAS, scaled back in
the EACJ and largely succeeded in the SADC.
1 Introduction
Many scholars, journalists and attorneys express concern about backlashes against
international courts. Upon investigation, most supposed examples of backlash turn
out to be little more than piqued criticisms, impassioned speeches or policy suggestions
that are never seriously pursued. In fact, the vast majority of state-approved
revisions of international court-founding treaties have expanded the courts’ jurisdiction
and access rules rather than overturning disfavoured decisions or sanctioning
judges. This article provides new evidence that is at odds with this sanguine account.
We explore credible backlash threats against three similarly-situated international
courts in Africa over the last decade. In all three instances, an African government
responded to a politically controversial ruling by a sub-regional court with a formal
sanction proposal – to eliminate the court, narrow its jurisdiction and access provisions
or augment the rules for disciplining its judges.
The outcomes of these proposals were strikingly different, however. In West Africa,
states rejected the Gambia’s effort to curb the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS) Court’s broad access to private litigants in human rights cases. In
East Africa, while Kenya failed to persuade neighbouring countries to eliminate the
East African Court of Justice (EACJ) or oust its Kenyan judges, it restricted the Court
in other ways, creating an appellate division staffed with more conservative judges,
approving strict time limits for filing complaints and adding rules for removing judges.
In Southern Africa, Zimbabwe prevailed upon the Southern African Development
Community (SADC) member states to suspend the SADC Tribunal and its judges and
later to strip the Court of the power to review complaints from private litigants.
This article provides the first ever comparative documentation and analysis of these
three backlashes and their varied outcomes. We draw heavily on field research in West
Africa in 2011, and in East and Southern Africa in 2013 and 2014, including over 50
interviews and two workshops with government officials, human rights lawyers, bar
associations, international and national judges and the staff of the secretariats of the
sub-regional communities. A review of the Courts’ case law, non-governmental organizations
(NGO) press releases and news media reports provides additional context
for our analysis.
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 295
Our findings provide new evidence to explore theoretical debates relating to international
courts, including whether international judges are independent of states and
the extent to which international adjudication is bounded by political constraints.
Rationalist theories expect judges to anticipate and avoid negative political responses.
The judges on all three recently created international courts could readily anticipate
that their rulings would provoke a heated governmental reaction.Yet they issued their
controversial rulings even when it was clear that governments stood ready to respond
within court-curbing plans. What explains this audacious behaviour? Our answer
emphasizes the judges’ awareness that non-state actors in the sub-regions – officials
with community secretariats and lawyers associations, in particular – were likely to
back the courts and mobilize in support of their rulings. Variations in the extent and
political influence of this mobilization and in the independence and political power of
civil society groups, on the one hand, and regional secretariats and parliaments, on
the other, helps explain the divergent outcomes in each sub-region.
The second part of this article describes the backlash attempts against the ECOWAS,
the East African Community (EAC) and SADC courts.The third part distils the similarities
and differences across the three cases, arguing that relative state power, variations
in institutional design and the subject matter of each case triggering the backlash do
not sufficiently explain the divergent outcomes. We show that consensus voting rules
and political inertia make successful backlash efforts difficult to achieve, and, thus,
extra-legal manoeuvring is key to changing the status quo. The fourth part analyses
how backlash efforts are derailed. We focus on the extent to which community
secretariats, civil society groups and sub-regional parliaments can delay or thwart
extra-legal strategies, buying time and creating opportunities for court supporters to
mobilize. The fifth part concludes by briefly discussing other implications of our findings
for the study of international courts.
2  Backlashes against Three Sub-Regional Courts in Africa
This section explains the causes and consequences of the three international court
backlashes. The three courts are alike in several respects. Each is associated with a
sub-regional integration community in which the primary goal of economic liberalization
is supplemented by a softer commitment to human rights and good governance
– a commitment that has generated most of the cases decided by all three
international courts. These communities include several common institutional features:
the adoption of legally binding rules and collective decisions by consensus; a
requirement to consult with civil society groups and, in principle at least, a commitment
to put common state and societal interests above the preferences of any one
government. Another similarity concerns the political and legal features of each community’s
member states. ECOWAS, the EAC and the SADC are each comprised of a mix
of emerging or fragile democracies and authoritarian regimes. And all three include
national legal systems with little tradition of judicial independence and at least some
countries where the rule of law is fragile or illusory. Yet another commonality relates
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296 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
to the design features of each international court, in particular, the ability of individuals
and NGOs to file suits directly with the courts against member states alleging
violations of international law.
However, the three sub-regional courts are also hard cases for resisting a backlash.
In comparison to Europe, the relatively small size of each community should facilitate
coordination to sanction judges or restrict a court’s jurisdiction and access rules.
Moreover, many African nations have a tradition of strong executive branches, weak
judiciaries, citizens who share a deep post-colonial distrust of external interference
and, relatedly, a reluctance on the part of political leaders to openly challenge the
actions of other African governments.
Since very little is known about these courts or the backlashes against them, our
account is fairly detailed. We begin with a summary of each community’s origins and
institutions, identifying key similarities and differences across the three systems. We
then describe the international court rulings that precipitated the backlash in each
sub-region, including the government proposals to eliminate the courts or narrow
their jurisdiction. We conclude by analysing the role of governments, community secretariats,
civil society groups and the judges themselves in orchestrating or thwarting
the backlash.
A  The ECOWAS Court of Justice: A Failed Backlash
The 2009 backlash against the ECOWAS Court stemmed from suits against the
Gambia that fell squarely within the court’s human rights authority. A  2005
Supplementary Protocol gives the ECOWAS Court broad jurisdiction over human
rights suits.1
Private litigants from all 15 West African nations have direct access to
the Court without the need to exhaust domestic remedies, a requirement imposed
by most global and regional human rights systems. Among the first human rights
suits to reach the ECOWAS Court were two complaints filed in 2007 by an NGO, the
Media Foundation for West Africa, on behalf of Gambian journalists who had been
detained and allegedly tortured for publishing news articles critical of the govern-
ment.2
The Gambia has long been ruled by one of the most repressive regimes in
West Africa. Police and intelligence agents of President Yahya Jammeh regularly
harass independent and opposition media and exercise tight control over the country’s
judges.3
1
	 Supplementary Protocol A/SP.1/01/05 Amending the Preamble and Articles 1, 2, 9, and 30 of Protocol
A/P.1/7/91 Relating to the Community Court of Justice and Article 4 Paragraph 1 of the English Version
of the Said Protocol (2005 Supplementary Protocol) (2005), available at http://www.courtecowas.org/
site2012/pdf_files/supplementary_protocol.pdf (last visited 16 March 2016), Arts 3, 4. For additional
background on the origins of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court and the
Protocol, see Alter, Helfer and McAllister, ‘A New International Human Rights Court for West Africa: The
ECOWAS Community Court of Justice’, 108 American Journal of International Law (2013) 737.
2
	 ECOWAS Court, Manneh v. The Gambia, ECW/CCJ/JUD/03/08, 5 June 2008; ECOWAS Court, Saidykhan
v. The Gambia, ECW/CCJ/RUL/05/09, 30 June 2009.
3
	 US Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2013: The Gambia: Executive
Summary (2013).
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 297
Given this climate of repression, the two ECOWAS suits provoked a hostile reaction.
As one West African human rights lawyer explained, Jammeh had already ‘conquered
his own judiciary,’ and he ‘refused to be bound by a court in Abuja’ (the seat of the
ECOWAS Court).4
The Gambia flatly ignored multiple requests to file documents or
appear in court in the first suit by Chief Ebrima Manneh. The government’s stonewalling
strategy backfired. In June 2008, the ECOWAS judges issued a carefully reasoned
and evidence-rich decision finding the Gambia responsible for torture and other
human rights abuses and ordering the government to release Manneh from detention
and pay him US $100,000.5
The ECOWAS Court’s judgment in the Manneh case sent shock waves across West
Africa. As the same human rights lawyer noted, ‘with a $100,000 fine, the embarrassment
was huge’.6
The case and the repression of journalists that it exposed received
widespread negative publicity. As one NGO press release explained, ‘[t]he Gambian
media environment has long been hostile and dangerous, but the government’s flagrant
disregard for the ECOWAS legal proceedings represents a low point’.7
Foreign
governments and international organizations were equally damning and demanded
that the Gambia fully comply with the Court’s judgment.8
The second suit, concerning the detention and torture of Musa Saidykhan, was
harder to ignore – the journalist was alive, exhibited clear signs of torture and pursued
the case from the safety of exile.9
The government responded to Saidykhan’s suit
with a broadside of legal and political arguments, including a claim that the suit was
‘an affront to [Gambian] sovereignty’.10
The ECOWAS judges stood their ground. In
June 2009, the Court published an interim ruling that considered and rejected each
of the government’s objections.11
Having failed to defeat Saidykhan’s suit with procedural objections, President
Jammeh adopted a different strategy, working within ECOWAS to challenge the
Court’s human rights jurisdiction. In September 2009, the Gambia submitted to the
ECOWAS Commission – the sub-regional Secretariat – an official request to revise the
2005 Supplementary Protocol.12
The request was accompanied by the text of a draft
Supplementary Act consisting of six amendments to the ECOWAS Court’s powers:
4
	 Interview with Human Rights Advocate C by telephone (10 February 2011).
5
	 Manneh, supra note 2, paras 4, 28, 44.
6
	 Interview with Human Rights Advocate C by telephone (10 February 2011).
7
	 International Press Institute, ‘IPI Calls on the Gambian Government to Cooperate with ECOWAS
Legal Proceedings’, Senegambia News (13 March 2008), available at http://allafrica.com/stories/200803170690.html
(last visited 17 March 2016) (copy also on file with authors).
8
	 Rhodes, ‘Six Senators Call for Ebrima Manneh’s Immediate Release’, Committee to Protect Journalists
(23 April 2009), available at https://cpj.org/blog/2009/04/six-senators-call-for-ebrima-mannehsimmediate-rel.php
(last visited 17 March 2016). Linda Akrasi Kotey, ‘Ghana: Akoto Ampaw,Two Others
in Gambia’, Ghanaian Chronicle (17 July 2009), available at http://allafrica.com/stories/200907171086.
html (last visited 16 March 2016).
9
	 ‘ECOWAS Torture Case against the Gambia Nears an End’, Afrol News (22 September 2010), available at
www.afrol.com/articles/36623 (last visited 16 March 2016).
10
	Saidykhan, supra note 2, para 11.
11
	 Ibid., para 37.
12
	 2005 Supplementary Protocol, supra note 1.
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298 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
(a)	 that with respect to human rights cases, the Court should only have jurisdiction
in cases arising from international instruments ratified by the respondent
country;
(b)	 also in human rights cases, the ECOWAS Court’s jurisdiction should be made subject
to the exhaustion of domestic remedies;
(c)	 cases should only be admissible if instituted not later than 12 months after the
exhaustion of local remedies;
(d)	 cases should not be anonymous;
(e)	 the Court should not hear cases that are before other international mechanisms
of settlement;13
and
(f)	 to create an appeals procedure.14
On their face, these proposals appear relatively modest and uncontroversial. For the
Media Foundation for West Africa and other human rights groups in the region,
however, the true motivation for the proposals and their harmful consequences were
immediately apparent.
According to a joint press release issued by 11 NGOs, the Gambia proposed the
amendments to weaken the ECOWAS Court’s ‘capacity to deal effectively with tyrannical
governments trampling on citizens’ rights’ and to ‘depriv[e] citizens of free
access’ to an ‘independent judicial instrument that is not usually available in many
countries’ in a region ‘where the judiciary is an arm of the executive’. The NGOs also
characterized the attempt to limit the Court’s jurisdiction as a ploy to prevent the
Court from hearing Saidykhan’s suit against the Gambia – one of ‘the rare African
countries which have not ratified the United Nations Convention against Torture’.15
The press release urged the ECOWAS Commission to invite civil society groups to a
proposed experts’ meeting that it had convened to review the Gambia’s proposals or to
postpone the meeting ‘until there are broad consultations with representatives of civil
society organizations’.16
In fact, officials in the ECOWAS Commission’s Legal Affairs Directorate had already
reached out to key lawyers and rights groups.17
To turn up the heat in advance of
the meeting, two leading human rights organizations – the Registered Trustees of
the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project and the Centre for Defence of
Human Rights and Democracy in Africa, represented by the influential head of the
13
	 ‘West Africa: Country Submits Proposals to Amend ECOWAS Protocol’, FOROYAA Newspaper
(Serrekunda, 25 September 2009), available at http://allafrica.com/stories/200909250810.html (last
visited 16 March 2016); see also N. Adu Ampofo, ‘Gambian Authorities Seek to Limit Reach of Regional
Human Rights Court’, Global Insight (28 September 2009).
14
	 A. Jallow, ‘Rights Groups Sue Gambia over Access to ECOWAS Court’, 30 September 2009, available at
http://listserv.icors.org/scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A2=ind0909E&L=gambia-l&F=&S=&P=11181 (last visited
16 March 2016).
15
	 International Freedom of Expression Exchange, ‘Four IFEX Members, Civil Society Groups Fear Gambia
Proposal Will Prevent ECOWAS Court from Ruling in Saidykhan Case’, 28 September 2009, available at
www.ifex.org/west_africa/2009/09/28/ecowas_court_jurisdiction/ (last visited 16 March 2016).
16
	 Ibid.
17
	 Interviews with Human Rights Advocates B (3 February 2011) and C by telephone (10 February 2011);
Interview with ECOWAS Legal Affairs Directorate A in Abuja, Nigeria (7 March 2011).
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 299
West African Bar Association, Femi Falana, filed an ex parte motion with the ECOWAS
Court seeking an emergency order ‘to stop the Government of Gambia and the
ECOWAS Commission from amending the laws concerning the jurisdiction and access
to’ the Court.18
The suit, publicized in the news media, challenged the legality of the
Gambian proposals on multiple grounds. It also tied the proposals to the Gambia’s
refusal to comply with the Manneh judgment.19
Two days later, legal experts from across West Africa gathered in the Nigerian
capital to consider the proposals. Although accounts of the meeting differ on some
details, all sources agree that an ECOWAS Committee of Legal Experts decisively recommended
against narrowing the Court’s human rights powers.20
One week later,
the Council of Justice Ministers endorsed the legal experts’ recommendation. Their
decision effectively shelved the proposals.21
The Gambia could have sought a further
review before the Council of Justice Ministers, but the government at this point abandoned
its campaign to sanction the Court.
The Gambian backlash provided a clear opportunity for West African governments
to reconsider the ECOWAS Court’s expansive human rights jurisdiction and
access rules. Their decision to decisively reject the Gambian challenge is striking. One
ex­planation was the widely shared perception of the Gambia as a bad actor with limited
political clout in ECOWAS. However, the defeat would not have occurred without
the extensive mobilization efforts of human rights NGOs and attorneys. By issuing
press releases, filing an emergency suit and demanding access to a key meeting, these
actors ensured that the Gambia’s campaign was well publicized, that consultation
procedures were followed and that their voices would be heard when experts convened
to discuss the proposals.22
Equally essential was the overt and tacit support of individuals within the ECOWAS
Commission.The Commission had recently blessed the member states’ decision to provisionally
delegate capacious human rights authority to the then-inactive ECOWAS
Court. The judges had just begun to exercise this authority, and one of their judgments
– against Niger for condoning modern forms of slavery – received widespread
recognition and praise, including in the foreign media.23
In addition, West African
18
	Jallow, supra note 14.The complaint was apparently withdrawn after the defeat of the Gambia’s proposals.
19
	 I. Anaba, ‘SERAP, CHRDA Challenge Plans to Amend ECOWAS’ Court Powers’, Vanguard (Nigeria, 26
June 2008).
20
	 Interview with Human Rights Advocate C by telephone (10 February 2011); Interview with Human
Rights Advocate A by telephone (11 January 2011); M. Nyang, ‘Amendment [sic] to ECOWAS Court
Mandate: Gambia Isolated By State Parties’, 30 September 2009, available at http://listserv.icors.org/
scripts/wa-ICORS.exe?A2=ind0910A&L=gambia-l&F=&S=&P=76 (last visited 16 March 2016).
21
	 Sources disagree as to whether the justice ministers rejected the Gambian proposal unanimously,
defeated it by a 9–6 vote or whether the government withdrew the proposal. See Media Foundation for
West Africa, Press Statement: Justice Ministers Endorse Experts’ Decision, 14 October 2009, available
at www.ifex.org/west_africa/2009/10/14/gambian_proposal_defeated/ (last visited 16 March 2016);
Interview with Human Rights Advocate A by telephone (11 January 2011); Interview with Human
Rights Advocate C by telephone (10 February 2011).
22
	 Interview with ECOWAS Legal Affairs Directorate A in Abuja, Nigeria (7 March 2011).
23
	 ECOWAS Court, Hadijatou Mani Koraou v. Niger, Judgment, ECW/CCJ/APP/08/07, 27 October 2008; see also
L. Polgreen, ‘Court Rules Niger Failed by Allowing Girl’s Slavery’, NewYork Times (28 October 2008), at A6.
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300 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
governments had doubled down on their support of the Court in 2006 by creating a
Judicial Council to screen applications for open judgeships and recommend a slate of
the best qualified candidates to the member states.24
To impose additional hurdles to
private litigants suits just as the Court was beginning to hear cases would have undercut
these political and institutional investments in the community’s fledgling judicial
body – an outcome that Commission officials disfavoured.25
Since the rejection of its proposals, the Gambia has continued to flout the ECOWAS
Court’s 2007 decision in the Manneh case and its 2010 judgment in favour of the second
journalist, Musa Saidykhan.26
However, the defeat of the government’s campaign
had the opposite of its intended goal. The Court has continued to develop its human
rights jurisprudence, albeit in a manner suggesting its awareness of the political limits
of its authority and the serious obstacles to securing compliance with its judgments.
The judges have condemned clear human rights abuses while rejecting litigant pleas
to construe its jurisdiction expansively and using public speeches to urge governments
to comply with its judgments.27
The Court has pursued these actions notwithstanding a multi-year delay in judicial
appointments, during which time the existing judges remained in office and continued
to hear cases.28
With the swearing in of a new slate of seven judges recommended by
the Judicial Council in 2014,29
the ECOWAS Court’s formal human rights authority
now rests on a more solid legal and political foundation.
B  The EACJ: A Backlash Redirected
The current EAC is a revival of an earlier EAC that operated from 1967 to 1977 and
consolidated colonial era regional institutions dating back to 1917. The re-establishment
of the EAC in 1999 reflected a renewed commitment to sub-regional integration
and cooperation that involves not only states but also the private sector and peoples of
East Africa. The EAC’s judicial arm has a similar historical legacy. The EACJ replaced
24
	 Decision A/Dec.2/06/06 Establishing the Judicial Council of the Community, adopted 14 June 2006.
The Council comprises the presidents and chief justices from member states not then represented on the
seven-member ECOWAS Court.
25
	 Interview with a legal adviser at the ECOWAS Legal Affairs Directorate in Abuja, Nigeria (7 March 2011).
26
	 In 2010, the ECOWAS Court issued a judgment holding the Gambia responsible for illegally detaining
and torturing Saidykhan and awarding him damages of US $200,000. ECOWAS Court, Saidykhan v. The
Gambia, Judgment, ECW/CCJ/APP/11/07, 16 December 2010, para. 47. In 2011, the Gambia denied
responsibility for Manneh’s death and asked the court to set aside both judgments on the ground that the
judges failed to properly assess the evidence. In 2012, the Court rejected the Gambia’s arguments and
reaffirmed the judgments. The USA, the United Kingdom and non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
continue to push for compliance in country reports and before United Nations human rights bodies.
27
	 See Alter, Helfer and McAllister, supra note 1, at 766–768.
28
	 Protocol A/P.l/7/91: On the Community Court of Justice Protocol A/P.l/7/91 on the Community Court
of Justice (1991), available at http://www.courtecowas.org/site2012/pdf_files/protocol.pdf (last visited
16 March 2016),Art. 4(3) provides: ‘At the expiration of the term of a member of the Court, the said
member shall remain in office until the appointment and assumption of office of his successor.’
29
	 ECOWAS, Judicial Council Endorses Recruitment of 7 Judges for ECOWAS Court of Justice, Press Release
No. 051/2014, 21 March 2014.
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 301
the East African Court of Appeal, which closed down in 1977 with the collapse of the
earlier EAC. While the EACJ, launched in 2001, is sometimes confused with its precursor,
it is an international court charged with interpreting and applying EAC treaties
and other community legal texts.30
The most controversial aspect of the EACJ’s jurisdiction concerns human rights.31
Unlike the ECOWAS Court, which has an express mandate to hear human rights suits,
and the SADC Tribunal, which interprets a sub-regional treaty that arguably includes
human rights commitments, the EAC Treaty explicitly states that the EACJ shall have
a human rights jurisdiction ‘as will be determined by the [EAC] Council at a suitable
subsequent date’ once member states ‘conclude a protocol to operationalise the
extended jurisdiction’.32
EAC member states have not adopted such a protocol, yet human rights cases comprise
most of the EACJ’s docket.33
This paradox is the result of sustained advocacy by
human rights lawyers in East Africa, who have urged the Court to adjudicate violations
of the rule of law, social justice and human rights in the EAC Treaty’s objectives
and fundamental principles clauses, even in the absence of the protocol’s adoption.34
EAC member states have repeatedly contested the EACJ’s jurisdiction to entertain
these suits. Yet the Court, while acknowledging that it is not a human rights tribunal
as such, has repeatedly asserted its power to interpret EAC legal instruments relating
to human rights.
The case that provoked a backlash did not, however, involve human rights. In its
first ruling under its contentious jurisdiction,35
the EACJ rejected the slate of candidates
chosen by Kenya to sit in the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA).The legal
issue concerned Article 50 of the EAC Treaty, which requires an election for seats in
the EALA.36
Instead, the Kenyan government divided the seats among the country’s
political parties in proportion to their strength in the national Parliament – a move
that the opposition party viewed as an attempt to control the domestic legislative
agenda and renege on promises to share power.37
30
	 Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community (EAC Treaty) 1999, 2144 UNTS 255, Art.
27(1).
31
	 See Gathii, ‘Mission Creep or a Search for Relevance: The East African Court of Justice’s Human Rights
Strategy’, 24 Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law (2014) 249.
32
	 EAC Treaty, supra note 30, Art. 27(2).
33
	 Decisions of the East African Court of Justice (EACJ), available at http://eacj.org/?page_Ibid=2414
(last visited 16 March 2016). Many complainants to the EACJ seek preliminary injunctive relief; thus,
a majority of the court’s rulings are interim decisions. The EACJ website indicates that the Court had
issued 53 final judgments as of November 2015. The total tally of all final judgments, interim decisions,
interlocutory appeals and tax and cost rulings issued as of the same date is 113.
34
	 EAC Treaty, supra note 30, Art. 6(d) (fundamental principles), Art. 7(2) (operational principles).
35
	EACJ, Anyang Nyong’o v.  Attorney General of Kenya, Reference No. 1 of 2006, 27 November 2006,
available at http://eacj.huriweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/EACJ_rulling_on_injunction_ref_
No1_2006.pdf (last visited 16 March 2016).
36
	 EAC Treaty, supra note 30, Art. 50 ‘stipulates that the elected members shall, as much as feasible, be
representative of specified groups, and sets out the qualifications for election’.
37
	 Nyong’o, supra note 35, at 2–5.
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302 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
Opposition politicians turned to the EACJ hoping to inflict an embarrassing loss
on the governing party in the lead up to national elections. The key event triggering
the backlash against the Court was an interim ruling in Anyang Nyong’o v. Attorney
General of Kenya that barred EAC officials from recognizing Kenya’s slate of EALA
nominees until the Court had decided the case on its merits. The ruling incensed the
Kenyan government, triggering a campaign to kill the sub-regional court and exert
greater control over its judges. We highlight those aspects of the dispute that are relevant
to the Kenyan backlash and the responses by other EAC member states, civil
society groups, the EAC Secretariat and the EALA.38
The EACJ’s interim ruling is noteworthy for its unvarnished conclusion that Kenya
had breached the EAC Treaty by holding a ‘fictitious election in lieu of a real election’
and for the issuance of an interim injunction that delayed the EALA’s second session
by more than six months.39
Two aspects of the ruling especially vexed the government.
First, Kenya viewed the decision as unwelcome external interference in a sensitive
domestic political dispute and, even worse, as taking the opposition’s side. Kenya’s
president went so far as to label the EACJ’s ruling as undermining the country’s sov-
ereignty.40
Second, Kenya objected to the Court’s conclusion that its interpretation of
the EAC Treaty binds national courts and that the standing and exhaustion of domestic
remedies doctrines did not bar the Court from hearing suits from private litigants.41
Kenya’s reaction to the Nyong’o ruling was swift and furious. Officials pursued several
lines of attack more or less simultaneously. When one avenue was thwarted, the
government pushed ahead with other strategies, ultimately succeeding in rushing
through amendments to the EACTreaty that curbed the EACJ’s authority. Kenya’s first
move, led by Attorney General Amos Wako just days after the Court’s interim injunction,
was a behind-the-scenes effort to kill the fledgling court.42
The proposal was not
sympathetically received by Uganda andTanzania,43
which supported the East African
integration project and resisted regionalizing Kenya’s domestic political squabbles.44
Tanzanian officials viewed the proposal as ‘too extreme’,45
while President Museveni
of Uganda – who hoped to become the EAC’s president should the EAC become a
38
	 A blow-by-blow account of the lengthy and complex Nyong’o litigation is beyond the scope of this article.
For a comprehensive analysis, see Gathii, supra note 31, at 265–271.
39
	 Nyong’o, supra note 35, at 43; Interview with Judge C of the EACJ First Instance Division, Nairobi, Kenya
(2 August 2013) (asserting that the EACJ was aware that the Nyong’o ruling would delay the East African
Legislative Assembly’s [EALA] opening).
40
	 Speech delivered by Kenyan President Kibaki, 8th EAC Summit, Arusha Tanzania, 30 November 2006,
available at www.jaluo.com/wangwach/1206/Leo_Odera_Omolo120106a.html (last visited 16 March
2016) (noting that the ‘ruling of the Court poses serious challenges to the East African Community’ and
that the ‘Council of Ministers is well seized of these challenges and their grave implications’).
41
	 Nyong’o, supra note 35, at 20.
42
	 Individuals with first-hand knowledge described the government’s plans in off-the-record interviews.
43
	 Tanzania and Uganda were the only other member states of the East African Community (EAC) at the
time. Rwanda and Burundi did not join the EAC until several years later.
44
	 G. Warigi, ‘Our Free Wheeling Politics May Frustrate Regional Unity’, Daily Nation (3 December
2006) available at http://allafrica.com/stories/200612040362.html (last visited 16 March 2016).
45
	 Interview with Human Rights Advocate L, Arusha, Tanzania (30 July 2013).
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 303
political federation – shared with Tanzania an aversion to actions that could contribute
to the collapse of the EAC. Blocked in its efforts to kill the Court, Kenya turned to
a strategy that it could implement unilaterally – threatening to oust the EACJ’s two
Kenyan judges, one of whom was the Court’s president. By removing the judges from
the Nyong’o case, the government hoped to avoid an adverse ruling on the merits that
would solidify the opposition’s influence in the EALA.
During a status conference at the Court’s seat in Arusha, Tanzania, a high-level
legal team led by Kenya’s solicitor general visited the EACJ president’s chambers. The
attorneys urged the president and his Kenyan colleague to recuse themselves from the
Nyong’o case. If they did not, the solicitor general threatened to file a formal recusal
motion asserting that the two jurists had engaged in ‘corruption, unethical practice,
and absence of integrity’ in the performance of their judicial offices in Kenya.46
(Many
EACJ judges continue to serve as national judges while serving on the sub-regional
court, which is not a full-time judicial body.)
Refusing to accede to pressure tactics that the EACJ later described as ‘akin to
intimidation’47
and an ‘ambush’,48
the Kenyan jurists sought the advice of their
colleagues, who unanimously backed them. At the public hearing on the recusal
motion, the government made good on its threat to ‘wash the dirty laundry’ of the
Kenyan judges.49
It argued that because the judges had been suspended from their
duties on the Kenyan courts due to allegations of corruption, they could not render
a fair judgment in the Nyong’o case.50
In the end, it was the government that was
embarrassed. Kenya withdrew its complaint against one of the judges who had voluntarily
resigned from his national judicial post after the government commended
him for his service and wished him a ‘prosperous time in the EACJ’.51
Caught in its
own inconsistency, the government apologized.52
As for the second judge, the EACJ
found no basis to question his impartiality. A Kenyan court later found that the corruption
investigation violated that judge’s ‘natural justice rights’ and ordered his
reinstatement.53
Undaunted by its inability to oust the Kenyan judges, the government pursued
a third approach – amending the EAC Treaty. Kenya’s treaty revision proposal had
46
	EACJ, Attorney Gen. of Kenya v. Nyong’o, Application No. 5 of 2007, 6 February 2007, at 19; see also
‘Kibaki Rails at EAC Court as Rwanda, Burundi Join Up’, The East African (4 December 2006), available
at www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/-/2558/252342/-/t6awg5z/-/index.html (last visited 16 March
2016).
47
	 Nyong’o, supra note 46, at 11.
48
	 Ibid., at 8–9; Interview with EACJ Appellate Judges A and B, Arusha, Tanzania (30 July 2013).
49
	 Interview with EACJ Appellate Judge A and President, Arusha, Tanzania (30 July 2013).
50
	 Nyong’o, supra note 46, at 8.
51
	 Ibid., at 11, 14.
52
	 Ibid., at 12.
53
	 Republic v. Chief Justice of Kenya and Others Ex Parte Moijo Ole Keiwua (2010) eKLR. On the reinstatement,
see P. Kameri Mbote and M. Aketch, Kenya: Justice Sector and the Rule of Law: A Review by AfriMAP
and the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa (March 2011), at 111; M. Mati, ‘Kenya is Guilty of
Judicial Interference’, The East African (26 February 2007), available at www.theeastafrican.co.ke/
opOrEd/-/434748/253402/-/rbk891z/-/index.html (last visited 16 March 2016).
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304 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
several objectives: to pressure the judges to avoid further adverse rulings in the
Nyong’o case, to restrict the Court’s ability to hear cases from private litigants, to establish
an appellate chamber staffed by pro-government jurists and to create a procedure
to remove judges for misconduct.54
The East African Law Society (EALS) denounced
these proposals as a brazen and illegal ploy ‘to threaten and cow down the Court’55
and intimidate its judges.56
The amendments were proposed, drafted and adopted with exceptional haste,
circumventing the EAC’s institutional processes that opponents might have used to
block or weaken the proposals. On 28 November 2006 – one day after the Nyong’o
injunction – the EAC Council of Ministers called for a study of the Court’s jurisdiction.
Two days later, the three EAC presidents endorsed the Council’s recommendations to
reconstitute the EACJ as a two-level court with First Instance and Appellate Divisions,
to expand the procedures for removing judges from office and to convene a special
summit to adopt these changes as amendments to the EAC Treaty.57
On 7 December 2006, Kenyan Attorney General Wako chaired a meeting of EAC
attorneys general to finalize draft amendments to the EAC Treaty that Wako himself
had prepared.58
The very next day, the Council of Ministers convened an extraordinary
meeting to approve the draft amendments.59
Uganda adopted the amendments
on 11 December,Tanzania the next day and Kenya the day after.The summit endorsed
the amendments on 14 December 2006 on the sidelines of a non-EAC meeting,60
and
they entered into force in May 2007.61
The amendments substantially changed the EACJ’s structure, jurisdiction and
access rules. They split the Court into two divisions; provided rules for appeals to the
Appellate Division; added new grounds for removing or suspending EACJ judges due
to allegations of ‘misconduct’ in their home countries; clarified that the Court had no
power to review cases for which ‘jurisdiction [is] conferred by the Treaty on organs
of Partner States’ and added a two-month time limit for private litigants to file complaints
challenging national actions or decisions that are contrary to the Treaty.62
54
	 Onoria, ‘Botched-Up Elections, Treaty Amendments and Judicial Independence in the East African
Community’, 54 Journal of African Law (2010) 74, at 84.
55
	EACJ, East African Law Society and 4 others v. Attorney General of Kenya and 3 others, Reference No. 3 of
2007, 30 August 2008; see also East African Law Society (EALS), No Integration without the Rule of
Law, Press Release, 4 December 2006, at 2 (describing attempts ‘to intimidate and bully the Court’).
56
	 East African Law Society, supra note 55. See also ‘Wagging Tongues over EALA Ruling Is Contempt of
Court’, Arusha Times (10–15 December 2006), available at http://allafrica.com/stories/200612110956.
html (last visited 16 March 2016).
57
	 Communique of the Summit of the EAC Summit, 30 November 2006.
58
	 See Report of the Extraordinary Meeting of the Attorneys General on the Proposed Amendment of the
Treaty for the Establishment of the East African Community, Reference EAC/AG/EX/2006, 7 December
2006, para. 2.0.
59
	 Report of the Extraordinary Meeting of the Council of EAC Ministers, 7–8 December 2006.
60
	 ‘East Africa: Irate Kibaki Clips the Wings of EACJ Judges’, The East African (19 December 2006), available
at http://allafrica.com/stories/200612190758.html (last visited 16 March 2016).
61
	Onoria, supra note 54, at 82, n. 49.
62
	 EAC Treaty (revised), supra note 30, Arts. 26(1), 26(2), 27(1), 30(2).
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 305
The adoption of the amendments triggered a vociferous reaction from civil society
groups, opposition politicians and the plaintiffs in the Nyong’o case, all of whom
focused on the member states’ circumvention of sub-regional and national rules and
procedures. The EALS protested the exclusion of NGOs from the EAC-level amendment
process.63
Kenyan legislators protested the adoption of the amendments by
executive decree. 64
The Nyong’o plaintiffs unsuccessfully challenged the amendments
in a domestic suit before the High Court of Kenya.65
And academic commentators
characterized the amendments as an attempt to weaken the EACJ.66
These contestations soon reached the EACJ when the EALS challenged the amendment’s
adoption.67
In an August 2008 decision, the Court agreed with the Law
Society that the amendments were procedurally defective because the member states
had not allowed the private sector and civil society to participate in their drafting.68
The EACJ also categorically rejected as a ‘veiled intimidation’ Kenya’s allegation that
‘the hurried process [of adoption] was necessitated by the loss of public confidence in
the court’.69
Yet the Court refrained from invalidating the amendments because the
‘infringement was not a conscious one’, the violation was ‘not likely to recur’ and ‘not
all the resultant amendments are incompatible with Treaty objectives’.70
The decision
can thus be viewed as a rhetorical judicial pushback but a substantive acquiescence
to a political fait accompli.
Kenya’s efforts to overturn the EACJ’s edicts in the Nyong’o case were less successful,
however. In March 2007, the Court confirmed its interim injunction against swearing
in the Kenyan EALA members and ordered Kenya to conduct elections consistent
with the EAC Treaty.71
The government sought to evade the judgment by lobbying
Uganda and Tanzania, but the two states stood behind the EACJ. President Museveni
of Uganda even sent emissaries to the Kenyan leaders, urging them to put their political
house in order to avoid impeding the EAC integration agenda.72
Lacking the support
of the other governments, Kenya finally capitulated. In May 2007, the Kenyan
63
	 See People’s Daily Online, 16 December 2006, available at http://english.people.com.cn/200612/16/
print20061216_333151.html (last visited 16 March 2016).
64
	 Kenya Parliamentary Debates, National Assembly (Hansard), 16 May 2007, at 1339–1429, available
at http://info.mzalendo.com/hansard/sitting/national_assembly/2007-05-16-09-00-00 (last visited 16
March 2016).
65
	 Nairobi High Court, Anyang Nyong’o and 10 Others v. AG, Civil Case No. 49, 2006, available at http://
kenyalaw.org/caselaw/cases/view/37525 (last visited 16 March 2016).
66
	Onoria, supra note 54, at 83–94; A. Pieter van der Mei, The East African Community: The Bumpy Road
to Supranationalism, Maastricht Faculty of Law Working Paper 2009-7 (2009), at 12.
67
	EALS, supra note 55.
68
	 Ibid., at 13–14.
69
	 Nyong’o, supra note 46, at 11
70
	EALS, supra note 55, at 43–44.
71
	 Nyong’o, supra note 35 at 36.
72
	 N. Nyamboga, ‘East Africa: Partner States Decline to Support Kenya’s Plea’, East African Standard
(Nairobi, 9 May 2007), available at http://allafrica.com/stories/200705081068.html (last visited 16
March 2016).
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306 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
Parliament revised the rules for EALA membership and held fresh elections conforming
to the Court’s interpretation of the EAC Treaty.73
Although the EACJ survived Kenya’s backlash campaign, the amendments to the
EAC Treaty have altered its subsequent evolution. The two-month time limit for filing
cases has presented challenges for lawyers, and the Appellate Division has reversed
some of the First Instance Division’s more expansive rulings. Yet both the chambers
have adjudicated a broad range of legal issues covered by the EAC Treaty – in particular,
suits alleging human rights violations. The EACJ’s review of human rights suits is
by far the most important post-Nyong’o development. In Katabazi v. Secretary General
of the EAC, the EACJ held that it would not ‘abdicate’ jurisdiction over human rights
complaints framed as breaches of the EACTreaty’s fundamental principles.74
This was
a strikingly bold conclusion given the Treaty’s explicit statement that the member
states would confer such jurisdiction via a yet-to-be-adopted protocol.75
A series of human rights decisions have followed Katabazi, many of which have been
filed by, or have the support of, the EALS. Both chambers of the EACJ have endorsed
Katazabi’s core holding, but the First Instance Division has been more permissive to
private litigants, applying a continuing violations doctrine to circumvent the amendment’s
very short two-month window for challenging national policies and decisions
that are contrary to the EAC Treaty.76
In contrast, the Appellate Division has strictly
construed this provision, enabling governments to defeat several suits raising credible
allegations of human rights violations.77
C  The SADC Tribunal: A Successful Backlash
Unlike its sub-regional cousins, whose integration projects have roots in the immediate
post-independence period, the SADC is a more recent institution. When governments
launched the SADC in the early 1990s, they solicited financial support from
European governments. To make such assistance more enticing, the sub-region’s
political leaders decided to ‘visibly emulate’ the supranational ‘EC-style common market
model’ without, however, giving much thought to its ‘advantages and disadvan-
tages’.78
Thus, the emulation was in tension with the member states’ desire to ‘retain[]
a more sovereignty-preserving institution “in practice”.’79
73
	 East African Community (Election of Members of Assembly) Rules, 2007, adopted by the Parliament of
Kenya, 23 May 2007. Elections under these rules were held on 29 May 2007. Election of Members of the
EALA, Kenya Gazetter Notice No. 4873, vol. 109, No. 37, 31 May 2007.
74
	EACJ, Katabazi v. Sec’y Gen. of the E. African Cmty, Reference No. 1 of 2007, 1 November 2007, at 1–2.
75
	 EAC Treaty, supra note 30, Art. 27(2).
76
	E.g., Independent Medical Unit v. Attorney General of Kenya, Reference No. 3 of 2010 (1st Inst. Div.), 29 June
2011.
77
	EACJ, Omar Awadh and 6 Others v. Attorney General of Uganda, Appeal No. 2 of 2012 (App. Div.), 15 April
2013, at 15.
78
	 Lenz, ‘Spurred Emulation:The EU and Regional Integration in Mercosur and SADC’, 35(1) West European
Politics (2011) 155, 163.
79
	 Ibid., at 166; see also Nathan, ‘The Disbanding of the SADC Tribunal: A Cautionary Tale’, 35 Human
Rights Quarterly (2013) 870, 876–877.
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 307
The 1991 SADC Treaty envisioned that a tribunal would be created by a separate
protocol.80
In the late 1990s, after the SADC’s membership expanded to include five
more countries, including South Africa,81
the member states considered whether
to adopt the protocol. Several governments voiced a preference for arbitration and
mediation, but European donors expressed doubt that the SADC could advance subregional
integration without a more ‘effective and credible’ dispute settlement mech­
anism.82
Partly in response to this external pressure, the SADC Protocol’s drafters
– who included a British judge funded by the European Community – created a tribunal
modelled on the European Court of Justice, with direct access for private litigants
(after exhausting domestic remedies) and a preliminary ruling mechanism.83
The new Tribunal’s fate soon became inextricably linked to its first major case, filed
in 2007 by Michael Campbell, a white landowner from Zimbabwe.84
The case was
highly controversial, Campbell was a tenacious litigant, his attorneys were creative
and aggressive and the suit challenged the signature land redistribution program of
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe – a former rebel leader lionized across the region
for overthrowing white minority rule, but who is also one of Africa’s most autocratic
political leaders.
In post-independence Zimbabwe, the best land remained in the hands of a small
number of white farmers. The government initially followed a ‘willing seller, willing
buyer’ approach to land reform, but later began to forcibly expropriate white-owned
landholdings.85
In 2006, the government notified Campbell that it intended to seize
his farm. Campbell challenged the decision before the Zimbabwean Supreme Court.86
He also filed an application with the SADC Tribunal, alleging discrimination on the
basis of race, lack of due process in the deprivation of property and denial of access
to the courts.87
Over the next several years, the SADC judges issued a series of audacious interim
rulings, judgments and contempt orders in favour of Campbell and 77 other white
80
	 Treaty of the Southern African Development Community (SADC Treaty), available at http://www.sadc.
int/files/8613/5292/8378/Declaration__Treaty_of_SADC.pdf (last visited 16 March 2016), Art. 16.
81
	 The original Southern African Development Community (SADC) member states were Angola, Botswana,
Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Mauritius,
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Seychelles, South Africa and Madagascar joined the SADC
between 1995 and 2006.
82
	Lenz, supra note 78, at 166.
83
	 Protocol on Tribunal and Rules of the South African Development Community (SADC Protocol), available
at www.sadc.int/files/1413/5292/8369/Protocol_on_the_Tribunal_and_Rules_thereof2000.pdf
(last visited 16 March 2016), Arts 15, 16.
84
	 SADC Tribunal, Campbell and Others v. Zimbabwe (Merits), Case No. SADC (T) 2/2007, 28 November
2008, at 4 (complaint filed 11 October 2007).
85
	 Moyo, ‘Land Reform and Redistribution in Zimbabwe since 1980’, in S. Moyo and W. Chambati (eds), Land
and Agrarian Reform in Zimbabwe: Beyond White-Settler Capitalism (2013) 29.
86
	 Minister of National Security Responsible for Land, Land Reform and Resettlement, Constitutional Application
No. 124/06, Judgment No. SC 49/07, 22 January 2008, at 2, available at www.zimlii.org/zw/judgment/
supreme-court/2008/1 (last visited 16 March 2016).
87
	See Campbell, supra note 84, at 16–17.
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308 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
farmers whose suits were joined to his case.88
In November 2007, the Tribunal issued
a preliminary injunction preventing Zimbabwe from evicting Campbell or interfering
with his use of the land.89
Mugabe’s supporters responded to the ruling by kidnapping
and roughing up Campbell and his son-in-law and burning their farm. Refusing to bow
to pressure, Campbell and his lawyers continued to pursue the case after his release.90
The Tribunal issued its merits judgment in November 2008. The decision was bold
in multiple respects. First, with regard to jurisdiction, Zimbabwe argued that the references
to ‘human rights, democracy and the rule of law’ and non-discrimination in
the SADC Treaty’s Principles and General Undertakings clauses91
could not be adjudicated
until the adoption of a separate protocol.92
Since the member states had adopted
other protocols clarifying the issues to be referred to the Tribunal or handled in other
ways,93
the judges could reasonably have declined jurisdiction. Instead, they summarily
rejected Zimbabwe’s argument.94
Turning to the merits, the Tribunal ruled that Zimbabwe had violated the white
landowners’ rights in three respects – denying access to justice, discriminating on the
basis of race and failing to provide fair compensation. The first of these holdings was
the least controversial. Had the Tribunal confined its decision to the access to justice
issue, its ruling would have been a mostly symbolic victory for the plaintiffs. The two
other violations, however, struck at the heart of Mugabe’s land redistribution programme.
In defending its land reform programme against the non-discrimination
claim, the government cited the need to remedy inequities that persisted after independence.
That most owners of large agricultural lands happened to be white could
not, therefore, ‘be attributed to racism but [rather to] circumstances brought about by
colonial history’.95
88
	 SADC Tribunal, Gideon Stephanus Theron and 7 Others v. Zimbabwe, Case No. SADC (T) 03/08, 04/08
and 06/08, 28 March 2008 (application to intervene in Campbell case; granting intervention to 77
white farmers and ordering injunctive relief), available at www.worldcourts.com/sadct/eng/decisions/2008.03.28_Theron_v_Zimbabwe.htm
(last visited 16 March 2016).
89
	 SADC Tribunal, Campbell v. Zimbabwe (Interim Ruling), Case No. SADC (T) 2/2007, 17 December 2007,
at 8, available at https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/217670/campbell-v-zimbabwe-case-no-
2-2007-ruling.pdf (last visited 16 March 2016).
90
	 According to newspaper accounts, Campbell later died from injuries he sustained during the kidnapping.
D. Herbstein, ‘Mike Campbell Obituary’, The Guardian (24 April 2011), available at www.theguardian.
com/world/2011/apr/24/mike-campbell-obituary (last visited 16 March 2016).
91
	 SADC Treaty, supra note 80, Arts 4(c), 6(2).
92
	 Campbell, supra note 84, at 23. During the drafting of the SADC Protocol, supra note 83, an expert panel
considered, but ultimately rejected, the ‘inclusion of human rights in the mandate of the SADCTribunal’.
However, the panel also noted that the SADC already had ‘a more general human rights mandate’.
F. Viljoen, International Human Rights Law in Africa (2012), at 492.
93
	 SADC Overview: Protocols, available at www.sadc.int/about-sadc/overview/sa-protocols/ (last visited 16
March 2016). For example, the SADC Trade Protocol envisions a World Trade Organization-style dispute
settlement procedure administered by the Tribunal’s Registrar but involving ad hoc panels rather than
adjudication by the Tribunal. South African Development Community Consolidated Protocol on Trade
(2012), available at https://tis.sadc.int/files/6213/2808/8365/CONSOLIDATED_PROTOCOL_ON_
TRADE_vers_30-01-2012.pdf (last visited 16 March 2016), Annex VI.
94
	 Campbell, supra note 84, at 23–24.
95
	 Ibid., at 44.
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 309
The judges disagreed, finding that the land reform programme had a disparate
impact on white farmers that was ‘unjustifiable and disproportionate’ as well as ‘arbitrary
and ... based primarily on considerations of race’.96
Redistribution might be
legitimate, the judges reasoned, if lands were ‘distributed to poor, landless, and other
disadvantaged and marginalized groups’. But the Tribunal found that ‘the spoils of
expropriation’ had been distributed primarily to members of the ruling party.97
The
Tribunal next ruled that international law required the government ‘to protect the
possession, occupation and ownership of’ white farmers still on their land and to compensate
those whose lands it had already seized. Moreover, Zimbabwe could not rely
on its Constitution to avoid these obligations.98
The political fallout of the Campbell judgment was immediate. Mugabe showed nothing
but contempt for the decision and the Tribunal. His statement to supporters a few
months after the judgment is illustrative: ‘Some farmers went to the SADC [T]ribunal
in Namibia, but that’s nonsense, absolute nonsense, no one will follow that ... We have
courts here in this country, that can determine the rights of people. Our land issues
are not subject to the SADC [T]ribunal.’99
Faced with government intransigence, the
white farmers returned to court. Although Zimbabwe did not participate in the proceedings,
the SADC judges found sufficient evidence to hold the state ‘in breach, and
contempt’ of the Campbell judgment and reported this finding to the SADC Summit
– the community’s highest political body – for further action.100
The June 2009 contempt
ruling galvanized Mugabe into action.
Events unfolded with lightning speed over the next few weeks. In August 2009, the
Tribunal’s president presented the Summit with a finding of Zimbabwe’s non-compliance,
as required by Article 32 of the Tribunal’s Protocol. This provision requires
member states and community institutions to take ‘all measures necessary to ensure
execution of decisions’,101
yet there was great uncertainty regarding what such measures
might be.102
The Summit referred the legal question to a Meeting of the Minsters
of Justice and Attorneys General.
Meanwhile, Mugabe tasked Patrick Chinamasa, his Minister of Justice and Legal
Affairs, to develop a political strategy to challenge the Campbell litigation and discredit
96
	 Ibid., at 53. The racial discrimination finding was disputed by Judge Tshosa, who concluded that whites
were inevitably affected more significantly by the government’s land redistribution policy because they
controlled most of the country’s agricultural land. For further discussion, see Achiume, ‘Lawmaking,
Geopolitical Dissonance, and the Authority of International Courts: Lessons from the SADC Tribunal’,
in K. Alter, L. Helfer and M. Madsen (eds), International Court Authority (forthcoming).
97
	 Campbell, supra note 84, at 54.
98
	 Ibid., at 58.
99
	 C. Chinaka, ‘Mugabe Says Zimbabwe Land Seizures Will Continue’, Mail and Guardian (28 February
2009), available at http://mg.co.za/article/2009-02-28-mugabe-says-zimbabwe-land-seizures-will-continue
(last visited 16 March 2016).
100
	 SADC Tribunal, Campbell and Another v. Republic of Zimbabwe, SADC (T) 03/2009, 5 June 2009, available
at www.saflii.org/sa/cases/SADCT/2009/1.html (last visited 16 March 2016).
101
	 SADC Protocol, supra note 83, Art. 32.
102
	 Interview with former SADC Tribunal official (date and location withheld). SADC Treaty, supra note 80,
Art. 33 authorizes the Summit to impose sanctions for persistent non-compliance. This provision has
never been invoked, however.
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310 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
the SADC Tribunal. Chinamasa arrived at the Meeting of Minsters of Justice and
Attorneys General with a 42-page memorandum arguing that theTribunal had never
been properly constituted. The common view, later upheld by an outside legal expert,
was that the 2000 Protocol creating the Tribunal entered into force when it was
adopted by three quarters of the Heads of State of the SADC, including Zimbabwe, as
provided for in the 1991 Treaty.103
Chinamasa argued that the Protocol was not binding
because two thirds of the member states, including Zimbabwe, had never ratified
the Protocol. As a result, he argued, all SADC Tribunal rulings were null and void,
and the member states were under no obligation to comply with them.104
This unexpected
claim threw the meeting into disarray, delaying any discussion of whether or
how to sanction Zimbabwe’s non-compliance.105
A week later, Chinamasa took the
next logical step, informing the Registrar that Zimbabwe ‘would not appear before
[the Tribunal] anymore, and neither would Government be bound by any decisions
already made or future ones emanating from there’.106
Campbell’s lawyers and the Tribunal’s supporters rushed to defend the judges and
their rulings.107
With the competing legal arguments now out in the open, the other
member states had to decide how to respond to Zimbabwe’s attack. While ‘Chinamasa
travelled to the regional capitals’ to lobby other governments,108
the SADC Council
of Ministers ‘was tasked with responding to Zimbabwe’s objections’ at the next SADC
Summit scheduled for August 2010.109
A month before that meeting, the Tribunal
upped the political stakes by issuing another contempt ruling against Zimbabwe and
again referring the country’s treaty violations to the Summit.110
We interviewed a former SADC judge about the contempt orders, asking whether the
Tribunal members in fact expected the Summit to enforce the Campbell judgment. At the
103
	 Ibid., Art. 36(1).
104
	 Execution and Enforcement of Judgments of the SADC Tribunal, Opinion of the Government of the
Republic of Zimbabwe on Issues Relating to International Law Raised at the Meeting of Ministers of
Justice/Attorneys-General, Pretoria, South Africa, July 30–31 2009, 31 August 2009.
105
	 Interview with Former SADC Tribunal Official (date and location withheld).
106
	 M. Sasa, ‘Zim Pulls out of SADC Tribunal’, Herald (Zimbabwe, 2 September 2009) (quoting letter of 7
August 2009), available at www.zimbabwesituation.com/sep3_2009.html (last visited 16 March 2016).
107
	 E.g., Southern African Litigation Centre, Re: Submissions made by the Minister of Justice, Zimbabwe, as
to the Legal Competence of the SADC Tribunal, The Enforceability of its Decisions, and the Legal obligations
of the Zimbabwean Government, 22 September 2010, available at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/
groups/zimsite/conversations/topics/40556 (last visited 16 March 2016).
108
	 Nathan, ‘Solidarity Triumphs over Democracy: The Dissolution of the SADC Tribunal’, 57 Development
Dialogue (2011) 123, at 130, available at http://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/19451?show=full
(last visited 16 March 2016); see also Fritz, Up in Smoke, SAFPI Policy Brief No. 11 (September 2012), at
2, available at http://osf.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Up-in-smoke-The-SADC-Tribunal-andRule-of-Law-in-the-region.pdf
(last visited 16 March 2016).
109
	 Southern Africa Litigation Centre (SALC), Implications of the Decision to Review the Role, Functions
and Terms of Reference of the SADC Tribunal: An Opinion (SALC Opinion) (undated, but likely early
2011), para. 2, available at www.africancourtcoalition.org/images/docs/research-papers/SADC%20
Opinion%20-%20final.pdf (last visited16 March 2016). We have not been able to find this study, and it
appears not to have been completed in time for the Summit.
110
	 SADC Tribunal, Fick and Another v. Republic of Zimbabwe, SADC (T) 01/2010, 16 July 2010, available at
www.saflii.org/sa/cases/SADCT/2010/8.html (last visited 16 March 2016).
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 311
time, Mugabe was brazenly ignoring a power-sharing deal that the SADC had brokered. If
the sub-region’s political leaders had not sanctioned the president for violating an accord
that they had publicly endorsed, it seems unimaginable that they would enforce a ruling
that overturned his signature land redistribution policy. For the judges, however, the law
providedasimpleanswer:‘[T]heapplicantwasgivenaremedy;itneededtobeenforced.’111
At the August 2010 Summit, Mugabe ‘threatened to block any discussion of
Zimbabwe and its human rights record’.112
Although there is no public record of the
Summit proceedings, it seems that several member states opposed Zimbabwe’s actions.
Officially, a compromise was reached whereby the Summit decided to hire an outside
consultant to undertake ‘a review of the role, functions and terms of reference of the
SADC Tribunal’, to be concluded within six months.113
On its face, this was a plausible way to address the Tribunal’s unsettled legal status.
Yet the compromise must be understood in light of the decisions that the Summit did
not take – the renewal of five SADC judges whose terms were about to expire, and
the replacement of the Zimbabwean judge whom Mugabe had withdrawn in 2009.
The SADC Secretariat had placed these issues on the Summit’s agenda. By taking no
action, the heads of state left theTribunal with only four judges – below the minimum
required to accept new complaints.114
The failure to reappoint the judges was a deliberate back-up strategy to Zimbabwe’s
frontal assault on the Tribunal and the Campbell rulings. Mugabe first blocked discussion
of, and later derailed, a Minsters of Justice and Attorneys General recommendation
to reappoint the judges whose terms had expired. This strategy exploited an
ambiguity in the SADCTribunal Protocol – its silence regarding the failure to renew or
reappoint sitting judges.115
By refusing to agree to renew or reappoint the judges – acts
that required the consent of all member states – Mugabe ensured that the Tribunal
would eventually cease to function even if its legal mandate remained intact.
Initially, however, the outcome of the 2010 Summit was only a partial victory for
Zimbabwe, since the remaining SADC judges were still in office and were pressing for
compliance with the Campbell judgment. To counter this threat, Mugabe and Justice
Minister Chinamasa spun the Summit’s decision in the press as a formal suspension
of theTribunal.116
SADC Executive SecretaryTomaz Salomão attempted to thwart this
111
	 Interview with Former Judge of the SADC Tribunal, Gaborone, Botswana (9 August 2013).
112
	Cowell, ‘The Death of the Southern African Development Community Tribunal’s Human Rights
Jurisdiction’, 131 Human Rights Law Review (2013) 153, at 161.
113
	 Final Communiqué of the 30th Summit of SADC Heads of State and Government (19 August 2010),
para. 32.
114
	 SALC Opinion, supra note 109, paras 4–5, 22–23.
115
	 SADC Protocol, supra note 83, Art. 4(6) provides that judicial vacancies shall be filled ‘within three (3)
months of the vacancy occurring’, but it is silent on what happens if a judge’s term expires and the
vacancy is unfilled. The EAC Treaty leaves this issue to ‘be determined by the Summit on the recommendation
of the Council’, EAC Treaty, supra note 30, Arts 25(3), 25(5). By contrast, as noted above, the
ECOWAS Court Protocol provides that a judge shall remain in office until a successor is appointed.
116
	C. Zvayi, ‘Southern African Development Community Tribunal Suspended’, The Herald (17 August
2010), available at http://panafricannews.blogspot.com/2010/08/south-african-development-community.html
(last visited 18 March 2016); ‘Mugabe Insists SADC Tribunal “Has Been Suspended”’, 23
August 2010, cited in Nathan, supra note 79, at 878, n. 45.
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312 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
disinformation campaign by reiterating the Summit’s official position: ‘No one took
a decision to suspend the Tribunal. What was said is that the Tribunal’s role [and]
responsibility has to be reviewed by professionals and experts to come up with clear
recommendations.’117
With charges and counter-charges flying, the next act in the backlash drama
began to unfold – the Summit-mandated review of the Tribunal’s powers and terms
of reference. The Secretariat issued a tender, awarding a contract to the World Trade
Institute.118
The report, written by Cambridge University professor Lorand Bartels,
categorically rejected Zimbabwe’s legal arguments, concluding that the Tribunal was
validly constituted and authorized to review human rights complaints from private litigants.
The report also recommended that the Protocol be amended to presumptively
reappoint Tribunal judges and officials unless the Summit chose to replace them.119
The Minsters of Justice and Attorneys General later endorsed this proposal as well as
a recommendation to reappoint the existing SADC judges.120
Contemporaneous accounts suggest that the member states were divided over how
to proceed. The Secretariat organized an Extraordinary Summit, which was held in
May 2011, at which theTribunal was the sole agenda item. Knowledge of the meeting
was withheld from Tribunal officials, who were notified only 48 hours in advance.121
At the meeting, Zimbabwe reiterated its opposition to the status quo. It also derailed
the Minister of Justices and Attorneys General recommendation to reappoint the
judges. The Summit’s final communiqué directed the ministers to prepare a fresh
report proposing ‘amend[ments to] the relevant SADC legal instruments’ by August
2012. The communiqué also purported to ‘reiterate[] the moratorium on receiving
any new cases or hearings of any cases by the Tribunal’ and declined to reappoint
or replace any SADC judges.122
The formal minutes of the meeting have never been
released, and it is uncertain whether the Summit in fact made an affirmative decision
to suspend the Tribunal and, if it did, whether such a decision would be legal.123
117
	 ‘SADC Tribunal Not Suspended: Salamao’, The Zimbabwean (19 August 2010), available at http://www.
thezimbabwean.co/2010/08/sadc-tribunal-not-suspended-salamao/ (last visited 18 March 2016).
118
	 Email correspondence with Lorand Bartels (14 April 2015).
119
	 L. Bartels, Review of the Role, Responsibility and Terms of Reference of the SADC Tribunal: Final Report
(2011), at 6, available at www.scribd.com/doc/115660010/WTIA-Review-of-the-Role-Responsibilitiesand-Terms-of-Reference-of-the-SADC-Tribunal-Final-Report
(last visited 17 March 2016). The report
also recommended a series of amendments to clarify ambiguities and resolve conflicts across SADC legal
instruments while maintaining the Tribunal’s broad jurisdiction and access rules (at 70, 82–87).
120
	 Interview with SADC Tribunal Official (date and location withheld).
121
	 Justice Ariranga Pillay, former President of SADC Tribunal, SADC Tribunal Dissolved by Unanimous
Decision of SADC Leaders (Pillay Speech), 11 July 2011, available at www.africancourtcoalition.org/
images/docs/subregionalcourts/sadctribunal/SADC%20Tribunal%20Dissolved%2020110718.pdf
(last visited 17 March 2016).
122
	 Communiqué of the Extraordinary Summit of SADC Heads of State and Government, 20 May 2011,
paras 7–8.
123
	 Interview with SADC Tribunal Official (date and location withheld). See, e.g., D. Steinmann, ‘Summit
Assigns Itself Jurisdictional Powers It Does Not Have’, Namibia Economist (17 August 2012), available at
https://economist.com.na/2548/editors-desk/summit-assigns-itself-jurisdictional-powers-it-does-nothave/
(last visited 17 March 2016).
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 313
During the next 15  months, human rights attorneys, NGOs and the judges
themselves – all of whom had been shut out of the SADC decision-making pro-
cesses124
– attempted to mobilize to save the Tribunal. They faced an uphill battle.
The Secretariat had become increasingly wary of transparency and of civil society
groups. It declined to release the Bartels report, leading the Tribunal’s backers
to post it on the Internet.125
The intensely political environment, which included
quietly voiced accounts of Secretariat officials doctoring official communiqués to,
in effect, supplant decisions taken by the Summit, created an atmosphere in which
the SADC employees became reluctant to talk or share accounts of what had in fact
occurred.
To highlight theTribunal’s emasculation, the SADC judges gave speeches, the NGOs
held conferences, drafted resolutions and press statements and the attorneys prepared
legal briefs outlining objections to the suspension.126
Partly in response to this ‘heavy
lobbying’, the Ministers of Justice and Attorneys General approved a revised draft
Protocol that offered a compromise.127
The draft preserved the right of private litigants
to challenge legal violations and added an appeals chamber. But it also narrowed the
Tribunal’s standing rules and made its human rights jurisdiction contingent on the
adoption of an additional legal instrument.128
On the crucial issue of the Campbell
case, however, the draft Protocol was unequivocal: ‘All actions, decisions, judgments
and other administrative acts undertaken pursuant to the 2000 Protocol ... shall
remain valid and in force.’129
124
	 E.g., Letter Submitted to Honorable Ministers of Justice and Attorneys General re: Amendments to the
Protocol Establishing the SADC Tribunal (1 June 2012), at 4, available at www.africancourtcoalition.
org/images/docs/subregionalcourts/sadctribunal/NGOs%20Letter%20to%20SADC%20Ministers%20
of%20Justice%20and%20Attorneys%20General.pdf (last visited 17 March 2016) (complaining that ‘it
has been virtually impossible for us as SADC NGOs even to attend the SADC Summit or Ministers of
Justice meetings on the sidelines’).
125
	 H. Melber, Promoting the Rule of Law: Challenges for South Africa’s Policy, Open Society Foundation for
South Africa SAFPI Commentary No. 5, 13 August 2012, at 9, available at http://osf.org.za/wp-content/
uploads/2015/08/Promoting-the-rule-of-law-Challenges-for-South-Africas-policy.pdf (last visited 17
March 2016).
126
	 See, e.g., Resolutions of SADC Lawyers, Judges and Rule of Law Advocates adopted at the 2nd Regional
Legal Consultative Conference on the Review of the SADC Tribunal, 28 July 2011, available at www.
africancourtcoalition.org/images/docs/subregionalcourts/sadctribunal/2nd%20Consultative%20
conference%20on%20the%20review%20of%20SADC%20Tribunal%20-%20Resolutions.pdf (last visited
17 March 2016); Pillay Speech, supra note 121; Submission Regarding Amendments to the SADC
Tribunal Protocol: Relating to Access Provisions, the Relationship with Superior National Courts and
Its Human Rights Mandate (undated, but likely 1 June 2012), available at www.africancourtcoalition.
org/images/docs/subregionalcourts/sadctribunal/NGOs%20Submission%20-%20Access%20and%20
jurisdiction%20issues%20at%20SADC%20Tribunal.pdf (last visited 17 March 2016).
127
	 F. Nijini, ‘Zimbabwe Wins Key Battle at Maputo Summit’, Southern Times (20 August 2012), available at
http://southernafrican.news/2012/08/20/zimbabwe-wins-key-battle-at-maputo-summit/ (last visited
17 March 2016).
128
	 Draft Protocol on Tribunal in the Southern African Development Community 2000 As Amended, SADC/
MJ/2/2012/4, 19 June 2012, Art. 15, available at www.osisa.org/sites/default/files/draft_sadct_protocol.pdf
(last visited 17 March 2016).
129
	 Ibid., Art. 58.
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314 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
Once again, Mugabe used the Summit to defeat the compromise. Zimbabwe could
have settled for cabining the Tribunal’s human rights powers or appointing a new
set of politically timid judges. Instead, Mugabe lambasted the Ministers of Justice
proposal, renewing his claim that Western powers were stage-managing the SADC
review process to target the country’s land redistribution policies.130
Multiple sources
suggested that the Summit leaders decided to again return the issue of the Tribunal’s
future to the Ministers of Justice and Attorneys General for reconsideration. The
signed Summit decisions have never been circulated, however, and multiple sources
told us that Zimbabwe worked with the Secretariat to doctor the official communiqué.
The sole public record of the meeting reflects an unequivocal victory for Zimbabwe – a
call for a new Protocol that confines the Tribunal’s mandate to the ‘interpretation of
the SADC Treaty and Protocols relating to disputes between Member States’.131
While the SADC insiders debated how they should respond to the hijacked Summit,
Mugabe’s continued refusal to appoint Tribunal judges or staff had, on its own, effectively
killed the sub-regional court. As a government official in Botswana explained,
by mid-2013 the contracts of the judges and staff had run out, ‘[s]o now there is no
SADC Tribunal’.132
This fait accompli gave Zimbabwe the upper hand in the negotiations
to reconstitute the Tribunal stripped of private litigant access.
The Summit’s official communiqué devastated civil society groups.133
Advocates challenged
theTribunal’s suspension before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’
Rights, but the Commission rejected the complaint.134
In August 2014, the SADC
Summit adopted the new protocol, which removes the right of private access, and it permits
member states to withdraw from the Tribunal’s jurisdiction by giving 12 months
notice.135
Nine African leaders, including Mugabe, signed the new instrument at the
Summit, while civil society groups, Campbell’s lawyers and a former SADC judge decried
the creation of a ‘toothless and useless’ sub-regional court that is unlikely to hear any
cases.136
Meanwhile, lawyers for Mike Campbell attempted to enforce the Tribunal’s rulings
in South African courts, eventually collecting modest damages from Zimbabwe.137
130
	Nijini, supra note 127.
131
	 Final Communiqué of 32nd Summit of SADC Heads of State and Government, 18 August 2012, para.
24.
132
	 Interview with Official of the Botswana Trade Ministry, Gaborone, Botswana (8 August 2013).
133
	 R. Lee, SADC Leaders Destroy SADCTribunal, Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, 20 August 2012,
available at www.osisa.org/law/regional/sadc-leaders-destroy-sadc-tribunal (last visited 17 March 2016).
134
	 A. Bell, ‘Top African Court “Powerless” to Reinstate SADC Tribunal’, SW Radio Africa (6 March 2014),
available at www.tralac.org/news/article/5511-top-african-court-powerless-to-reinstate-sadc-tribunal.
html (last visited 17 March 2016).
135
	 Draft Protocol of the SADC Tribunal, 18 August 2014, Art. 50 (copy on file with authors); see also
G. Erasmus, The New Protocol for the SADC Tribunal: Jurisdictional Changes and Implications for SADC
Community Law, TRALAC Working Paper No. US15WP/2015 (January 2015), available at www.tralac.
org/publications/article/6900-the-new-protocol-for-the-sadc-tribunal-jurisdictional-changes-andimplications-for-sadc-community-law.html#downloads
(last visited 17 March 2016).
136
	 Interview with Former Judge of the SADC Tribunal, Gaborone, Botswana (9 August 2013).
137
	 The lawyers secured a favourable ruling from the South African Constitutional Court that forced Zimbabwe
to make a $20,000 payment to avoid execution on property it owned in South Africa. D. Smith, ‘Zimbabwe
Government’s U-Turn on White Farmers’, Mail and Guardian (20 September 2013), available at http://mg.co.
za/article/2013-09-20-00-zimbabwe-governments-u-turn-on-white-farmers/ (last visited 17 March 2016).
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 315
3  Comparing the Three Backlashes: Similarities and
Differences
The three backlash attempts we analyse highlight the difficulty of collectively sanctioning
international courts for politically embarrassing rulings, even for governments
that are weakly committed to judicial independence. The barriers to carrying
out backlash proposals are political and institutional. Politically, even governments
that share concerns about controversial adverse international court rulings may
be reluctant to openly support national leaders who commit human rights abuses
against their own citizens. Institutionally, inertia is on the side of international courts
– blocking change is easier than reaching consensus in favour of altering the status
quo. Before offering our own explanation of the divergent outcomes of the three court
backlash campaigns, we first identify institutional and power-based similarities and
differences that allow us to eliminate or at least diminish alternative explanations.
Table 1 compares these features across the three cases.
For all three sub-regional communities, membership brought with it the compulsory
jurisdiction of a sub-regional court. Unilateral withdrawal from the Court’s jurisdiction
was not a legally viable option without exiting the community as a whole. All
three courts also provided direct access to private litigants alleging state violations of
community treaties, which expressly or implicitly incorporated references to human
rights. In addition, all three international courts were young institutions that began
to function in the 2000s, and all three backlashes responded to adverse rulings issued
in the first few years of each court’s operation.
Perhaps most importantly, each sub-regional community requires consensus to
modify the Court’s jurisdiction and access rules. The give and take required to reach
consensus affects whether court curbing campaigns succeed and to what extent. In
East Africa, for example, the opposition of Tanzania and Uganda to Kenya’s initial
push to eliminate the EACJ was crucial to moderating the backlash.The need to obtain
consensus may also explain why the Gambia touted its campaign against the ECOWAS
Court as a relatively modest judicial reform proposal. It is also possible, however, for
one state to repeatedly block consensus, transforming the decision-making rule into a
de facto unanimity requirement. Zimbabwe’s dogged refusals to acquiesce in reforms
that fell short of removing private party access to the SADC Tribunal illustrates an
effective use of this strategy.
Table 1 reinforces a key finding that emerges from the three narratives – the government
leading each backlash campaign had to expend considerable political capital
and effort to achieve its objectives, and it did not succeed immediately or in full. For
example, the aggrieved governments failed to pressure sub-regional judges to revise or
withdraw their decisions, and they could not convince other member states to eliminate
the tribunal or overturn its contested legal rulings.
The swiftness of the EAC backlash stands out, however. Kenya’s partial success in
restructuring the Court was aided by the small number of geographically close member
states whose leaders meet regularly and discuss sub-regional integration issues
outside of official decision-making venues. Zimbabwe’s effort to strip private litigant
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316 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
Table 1: ThreeInternationalCourtBacklashCampaignsCompared
ECOWASEACJSADC
Numberofmemberstates155(3attimeofbacklash)15
Yearoperational/yearoffirst
ruling
2001/20042001/20062005/2007
Decisionruletorevisethe
Court’sfoundinglegal
instrument
• Consensus• Consensus• Consensusinprinciple
• Unanimityinpractice
Dateofinternationalcourt
rulingtriggeringbacklash
5June200827November200628November2007
Dateofcollectivedecisionon
backlashproposal(s)
7October200914December200618August2012
Timebetweeninitialrulingand
finalcollectivedecision
• Approximately16 months• Approximately1 month• Approximately45 months
Failedbacklashproposals• Requireexhaustionoflocalremedies
• Narrowhumanrightsjurisdiction
• Addtimerestrictionsforfiling
complaints
• Createanappealsmechanism
• EliminatetheEACJ
• FiretheKenyanjudges
• DeclaretheTribunalillegallyconstituted
• Nullifythecontestedrulings
Successfulbacklashproposals• None• CreateanAppellateDivisionwith
moreconservativejudges
• Addshorttimelimitsforfiling
complaints
• Exclusivenationaljurisdictionover
designatedissues
• Corruptionaddedasagroundfor
removalofjudges
• Removeprivatelitigantaccesstothe
Tribunal
Compliancewiththecontested
ruling(s)?
• No• Yes• Generallyno,butpartialenforcementof
onedamagesawardinSouthAfrica
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 317
access to the SADC Tribunal illustrates the other end of the time spectrum. The consensus
rule required to revise the Tribunal’s mandate repeatedly generated compromise
proposals that Zimbabwe thwarted. Mugabe’s ‘plan B’ – starving the Tribunal by
blocking judicial renewals and appointments – was a multi-year strategy. However,
once the sub-regional court was no longer operational, Zimbabwe could dictate the
terms of its resurrection and insist on stripping private party access.
Another difference among the three cases is the economic and political power of the
country orchestrating the backlash. Kenya and Nigeria are the undisputed economic
and political hegemons in East and West Africa, respectively. Zimbabwe’s economy is
in disarray, but its political influence in the SADC is elevated by Mugabe’s prominence
as one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders and his anti-colonial bona fides. The clear
outlier among the three countries is the Gambia, which is small in size, population
and economic clout.
Might the failure of the ECOWAS Court backlash thus be explained by the Gambia’s
relatively weak status in West Africa? No doubt, opposing President Jammeh was
less costly than challenging leaders of more powerful ECOWAS nations.138
The lack
of popular support for the Gambian government in the region also facilitated opposition
to its proposals. These factors are not decisive, however. Prior to issuing the two
judgments that enraged the Gambia, ECOWAS judges had found other West African
governments in violation of their citizens’ human rights. Moreover, many of the then
pending cases were against Nigeria, which had previously objected to the Court’s
attempt to intervene in a contested election in that country.139
Moreover, the Gambia’s
reforms were the most modest of the three backlash proposals, and some of them were
recently revived in the guise of genuine improvements to the Court.140
For all of these
reasons, it would have been relatively uncontroversial for other West African governments
to accede to the Gambia’s proposals.
Another plausible, but ultimately unhelpful, explanation for the divergent backlash
outcomes concerns the process for appointing sub-regional judges. The law and
politics of appointments may explain the extent to which international court judges
are bold or timid, but they cannot explain whether court-curbing campaigns succeed
or fail. Stacking an international court with pro-government judges following a disfavoured
ruling might, however, be a way to clip a court’s wings.Yet none of the three
governments pursued this strategy. A partial exception is the EACJ, whose member
states have appointed somewhat more conservative judges to the Appellate Division.
In the decade since the backlash, however, the appellate judges have not appreciably
constrained the EACJ’s foray into human rights.
138
	 See Viljoen, supra note 92, at 499 (referring to the Gambia’s status as ‘one of the smallest and least powerful
states in ECOWAS’ as helping to defeat its proposal).
139
	 For further discussion, see Alter, Helfer, and McAllister, supra note 1, at 758–760.
140
	ECOWAS Retreat Adopts Recommendation for Setting Up an ECOWAS Court Appellate Body and
Sub-Registries, Press Release, March 2013 available at www.courtecowas.org/site2012/index.
php?option=com_content&view=article&id=214:ecowas-retreat-adopts-recommendation-for-settingup-an-ecowas-court-appellate-body-and-sub-registries
(last visited 17 March 2016).
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318 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
A final difference pertains to the subject matter of the contested rulings.The decisions
against the Gambia – disappearance and torture of dissident journalists – were unequivocal
human rights abuses that no government openly defended. The EALA elections
case, in contrast, involved a dispute over the boundary between community and domestic
law, a first-impression issue of jurisdiction that was amenable to good faith disagreement.The
challenge to Zimbabwe’s land rights regime was by far the most incendiary of
the three suits. All post-colonial societies struggle with the fraught legacy of highly concentrated
property ownership.Thus, there was much sympathy among regional leaders
when Zimbabwe argued that ‘if it happens to us, it happens to you next’.141
These subject matter differences cannot, however, explain why the Kenyan
and Zimbabwean backlashes succeeded in part. Land rights may well be a third
rail of post-colonial politics in Africa. But without Mugabe’s intransigence, one
of the many compromise proposals could well have succeeded. In fact, the SADC
Tribunal’s supporters repeatedly convinced the region’s Ministers of Justice and
Attorneys General to endorse reforms that retained private litigant access. Also, in
interviews SADC insiders reported that until the new protocol’s adoption, Summit
decisions had supported returning the issue to the ministers for further review and a
possible compromise. However, Mugabe’s strategy of blocking these proposals while
starving the Tribunal of judges and staff eventually forced the other member states
to accept stripping private access as the price to be paid for resurrecting the subregional
court.
4  Explaining the Divergence in Backlash Outcomes: The
Role of Community Secretariats, Civil Society Groups and
Sub-Regional Parliaments
The difficulty of successful backlash suggests a clear strategy for international court
supporters: calling for adherence to established decision-making procedures. Delaying
and publicizing sanctioning campaigns allows tempers to cool, exposes the ulterior
motives of seemingly benign proposals and shames other governments from tacitly
supporting court-curbing efforts. In addition, by insisting that states follow these
procedures, secretariats, civil society groups and regional parliaments can slow
down sanctioning initiatives, enhance transparency and create opportunities to rally
against backlash proposals.
This section examines the varying ability of these actors to mobilize to defeat the
three backlash campaigns. We focus on the political and institutional culture within
the community secretariats and their relationships to civil society groups as well as
the groups’ organizational capacity and resources. In East Africa, the EALA also provided
an additional source of support for the court, something that was lacking in the
other two sub-regions.
141
	 Interview with a Former Official of the SADC Lawyers Association, Gaborone, Botswana (9 August
2013).
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 319
A  Sub-Regional Secretariats as Brokers in Managing International
Court Backlash
The secretariats in each sub-region are comprised of a chief executive – a political
appointee – supported by a professional staff responsible for legal and policy matters
within the community’s purview. Secretariats organize meetings of government
officials, set agendas, coordinate logistics and prepare official documents. They also
advise states and political appointees on draft legislation and assist with the reviews
of community institutions. On paper, these decisions are matters of public record. In
reality, community websites are often out of date, and hard copies are unavailable.
Knowledge of these decisions – and opportunities for input by civil society – thus
depend on how forthcoming Secretariat officials are in disseminating information to
interested stakeholders.
The political culture and professionalization within the secretariats determines
whether these bodies exert independent influence within an overarching structure of
state power. These factors affect the willingness and ability of Secretariat officials and
staff to meaningfully defend community interests, including by engaging civil society
groups.The expectations of member states and political appointees shape this culture.
Where governments expect secretariats to be concierges or helpmeets, officials and
staff become less open and transparent, excluding civil society groups and acquiescing
to extra-legal pressures to ignore community decision-making procedures.
In West Africa during the years of the backlash, the staff of the ECOWAS Secretariat
had earned the member states’ trust and thus had considerable autonomy to carry out
its activities. For example, the Legal Affairs Department spearheaded the initiative to
give the ECOWAS Court a human rights jurisdiction. When governments expressed
concern about some early court decisions, the Secretariat facilitated the creation of an
ECOWAS Judicial Council that used a merit-based process for selecting judges.
With regard to the Gambian backlash, Secretariat officials followed procedures that
required informing ECOWAS judges about court reform proposals, a disclosure that
enabled the judges to reach out to allies to oppose the initiatives.142
Officials also gave
advance notice about key meetings, enabling civil society groups to attend and present
their views.The presence of NGOs at these meetings signalled to governments that
their actions were being scrutinized by networked groups who could quickly disseminate
the decisions. The ECOWAS Secretariat thus influenced the fate of the backlash
proposals through information sharing and indirect coalition building.
The situation in the EAC was quite different. The Secretariat seemingly did not
object when Kenya scheduled a series of rushed extraordinary meetings at which
national political leaders discussed the EACJ’s fate. In fairness, the Secretariat faced
immense pressure from Kenya, whose top officials – incensed at the EACJ’s injunction
in the Nyong’o case – were highly motivated, called meetings outside normal channels
and drafted treaty amendments to clip the Court’s wings. Moreover, Uganda and
Tanzania – although unwilling to kill the EACJ – supported or at least acquiesced in
142
	 ECOWAS Legal Affairs Directorate, Legal Adviser, Abuja, Nigeria (7 March 2011).
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320 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
Kenya’s more moderate reform proposals, limiting any manoeuvring room Secretariat
officials may have had to slow down the backlash campaign.
Yet the EAC Secretariat refrained from following mandatory procedures that could
have bolstered support for the sub-regional court. In particular, we found no evidence
that officials informed or sought the input of civil society actors regarding Kenya’s
backlash proposal, notwithstanding express community rules requiring such consul-
tation.143
On the contrary, we were told that the Secretariat – and, in particular, its
Office of Legal Counsel – generally avoided, or put off interactions with, civil society
groups agitating to strengthen the community legal order.144
It is not surprising that the EAC officials viewed their mandate primarily through
the prism of member state interests. Until recently, government lobbying rather than a
competitive, merits-based process was used to recruit professional staff.145
Further, the
Secretariat reports to the Council of Ministers, the community’s top political body that
represents member state interests. The control exercised by the Council has deterred
the Secretariat from expanding its autonomy or even from exercising the authority
expressly conferred by the EAC Treaty.146
In sum, EAC Secretariat officials did not
attempt to leverage NGOs that promote human rights and the rule of law in East
Africa as a counterweight to Kenya’s backlash proposal. Perhaps ironically, the Court
itself has done a much better job of mobilizing support from civil society.147
In the SADC, the toxic political climate makes it difficult to assess the extent of the
Secretariat’s efforts to protect the Tribunal from Mugabe’s wrath. Executive Secretary
Salomão countered early attempts by Zimbabwe to spin a modest Summit decision as
a vindication of the country’s more radical position, and Secretariat officials seemingly
worked in good faith with the Ministers of Justices and Attorneys General to
craft compromise solutions, including a new draft protocol for the Tribunal. However,
as Mugabe escalated the confrontation and blocked compromise proposals that would
have partly preserved private access to the Tribunal, the Secretariat became less forthcoming
in sharing information with Tribunal supporters and more closely aligned
with the backlash campaign.
143
	 See D. Deya, The Place of Civil Society in the Eastern African Community, Outline for a Session in the
Kitua Cha Katiba Intensive Seminar on the East African Community: Organs, Institutions and Procedures
(on file with authors).
144
	 Interview with Human Rights Advocate M, Nairobi, Kenya (1 August 2013).
145
	See A.  Odhiambo, ‘Five Kenyans Short-Listed for Top EAC Jobs’, Business Daily Africa (18 January
2015), available at www.businessdailyafrica.com/Five-Kenyans-shortlisted-for-top-EAC-jobs//539546/2593728/-/14rpt43/-/index.html
(last visited 17 March 2016).
146
	 EAC Treaty, supra note 30, Art. 71(1) provides: ‘In the performance of their functions, the staff of the
Community shall not seek or receive instructions from any Partner State. ... They shall refrain from any
actions which may adversely reflect on their position as international civil servants and shall be responsible
only to the Community.’
147
	 According to the first EACJ Registrar, the judges ‘boldly went around the region meeting its stakeholders
including bar associations, business communities, civil societies, law reform commissions and Attorney
Generals’. J. Ruhusinga, Litigation in the East African Court of Justice, Paper Presented to the East African
Law Society, African Executive, 12–19 July 2006, available at www.africanexecutive.com/modules/magazine/articles.php?article=794
(last visited 17 March 2016).
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 321
The SADC Secretariat also circumvented or ignored applicable procedures. Officials
denied funds to cover the travel and lodging expenses of SADC judges, limiting their
ability to convene at theTribunal. Officials also failed to announce upcoming meetings
and decisions. For example, the Tribunal’s president complained bitterly about his de
facto exclusion from key meetings.148
Perhaps most significantly, numerous sources
told us that key Secretariat staff colluded with Zimbabwe in preparing public statements
that misrepresented official Summit decisions.
Towards the end of the backlash campaign, civil society groups demanded access
to the SADC meetings and to records of official decisions. But their complaints fell on
deaf ears.This may well have reflected political reality – the unbending will of Mugabe,
the de facto withering of the Tribunal due to blocked judicial appointments and the
continued acquiescence of other member states. By August 2013 when Mugabe was
elected to the SADC’s rotating chairmanship,149
any astute Secretariat official could
see the writing on the wall.
B  Civil Society Mobilization to Oppose International Court Backlash
Civil society participation is a common and distinctive feature of European-style economic
communities. The West, East and Southern Africa integration projects are no
exception. They include procedures for soliciting the views of civil society actors in
collective decision-making processes. All three sub-regions require that civil society
groups register with community institutions, a status that enables them to consult
with officials and to attend key meetings. To be eligible for registration, civil society
groups must demonstrate that their membership extends across each sub-region.
Partly to meet this requirement, many bar associations, law societies and human
rights NGOs in Africa have organized themselves transnationally.
In all three cases in our study, sub-regional civil society groups were aware of the
government’s backlash efforts and actively mobilized to oppose them. What, then,
explains the groups’ varied influence in thwarting the backlash campaigns? Part of
the answer is how organized, cohesive and well-resourced the groups were in each
sub-region and how close a relationship they developed with community secretariats.
In West Africa, human rights organizations and law societies have been working
with the ECOWAS Secretariat for many years. Elsewhere, we explain how human
rights appeared on the agenda of ECOWAS in the early 1990s in response to credible
evidence of atrocities committed by military forces participating in an ECOWASsanctioned
humanitarian intervention in Liberia.150
When member states later
revamped the sub-region’s collective security institutions, they also included broad
participation rules for civil society actors.151
148
	 Pillay Speech, supra note 121, at 4–5.
149
	 ‘Mugabe to Become Next SADC Leader’, News 24 (20 August 2013), available at www.news24.com/
Africa/Zimbabwe/Mugabe-to-become-next-SADC-leader-20130820 (last visited 17 March 2016).
150
	 Alter, Helfer, and McAllister, supra note 1, at 744.
151
	 Decision A/DEC.9/8/94 Establishing Regulations for the Grant to Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs)
the Status of Observer within the Institutions of the Community, 6 August 1994, discussed in K. Oteng
Kufuor, The Institutional Transformation of the Economic Community of West African States (2006), at 49–50.
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322 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
Capitalizing on these rules, human rights groups organized transnationally beginning
in 2001, the same year that the ECOWAS Court was created. The West African
Bar Association followed in 2004, resolving to ‘supplement the work of [ECOWAS] by
promoting [the] rule of law, fundamental human rights and democracy in the sub-
region’.152
Human rights groups and the regional bar association partnered with the
Secretariat to strengthen the community legal order. The Legal Affairs Directorate
actively consulted the groups regarding the 2005 Protocol giving the ECOWAS Court
a human rights jurisdiction. And, as described in detail above, the Directorate followed
the civil society participation rules, ensuring that advocates were aware of,
and could attend, key meetings at which the Gambia’s court-curbing proposals were
debated.
In East Africa, the EALS and the Pan-African Lawyers Union (PALU) are highly
organized and maintain a permanent presence in Arusha, the home of the EAC,
the EACJ and other international courts. Founded in 1995 and based in Arusha,
the EALS has built personal connections with Secretariat officials and sub-regional
judges. The PALU is a more recent creation, founded in 2010 to better coordinate
Africa’s Anglophone and Francophone bar associations. These organizations operate
with a lean, but highly capable, staff. The EALS is also well financed by mandatory
dues from attorneys who renew their practice certificates with their national bar
association.
Formally, the EALS has observer status with the EAC and the right to participate
in Council meetings.153
Yet the society’s influence has been stymied by a lack of close
alignment between its objectives and those of the EAC Office of Legal Counsel.154
Attorneys told us that Legal Counsel staff had cancelled meetings at the last minute
and lost or delayed their requests for documents. Other EAC practices also minimize
participation, either by design or happenstance: ‘Council meetings are often planned
at the last minute, and there is often little prior notice given to EALS so that it can
secure attendance of one of its officers.’155
As explained above, EAC officials are focused on carrying out the objectives of member
states. Consultations with civil society groups do occur but mainly when their
interests overlap with those of the Secretariat. For example, the East African Business
Council was regularly consulted regarding drafts of sub-regional economic legisla-
tion.156
And NGOs working on development, gender, youth, children and business
issues are also involved in EAC Secretariat activities.157
With regard to human rights groups, however, the EAC’s Office of Legal Counsel
is more wary. One lawyer told us that the Legal Council staff informally consulted
152
	 General News Association, West African Bar Association Inaugurated, 24 August 2004, available at
www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/economy/artikel.php?IBID=64712 (last visited 17 March
2016).
153
	Gathii, supra note 31, at 282.
154
	 EAC Treaty, supra note 30, Art. 69 establishes the EAC Office of Legal Counsel as a body within the EAC
Secretariat.
155
	Gathii, supra note 31, at 282, n. 214.
156
	 Interview with a policy coordinator at East African Business Council, Arusha, Tanzania (30 July 2013).
157
	Deya, supra note 143.
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 323
with the PALU after governments expressed doubt about a Secretariat report on a
legal issue.158
The Secretariat also met with the EALS and the PALU to discuss a member
state proposal to give the EACJ jurisdiction over international crimes, while, at
the same time, sidelining the EALS’ key objective of adopting a protocol to confer an
express human rights mandate on the court.159
Seen in this light, it is not surprising
that the Secretariat officials did not consult the EALS and the PALU about Kenya’s
plans to weaken the EACJ following the N’yongo ruling. The EALS later challenged
the lack of civil society participation in the treaty amendment process, and the judges
validated their complaint:
We think that construing the Treaty as if it permits sporadic amendments at the whims of
officials without any form of consultation with stakeholders would be a recipe for regression to
the ... ‘lack of strong participation of the private sector and civil society’ that led to the collapse of
the previous Community.160
Yet the court declined to annul the amendments on prudential grounds, declaring
that ‘the requirement of involvement of people in theTreaty amendment process shall
have prospective application’.161
This cautious holding may reflect the judges’ pragmatic
recognition that, although the Secretariat had circumvented rules requiring
civil society participation, the amendments were a fait accompli that member states
would not reverse.
In Southern Africa, the SADC Lawyers Association was mostly excluded from community-level
consultations regarding the Tribunal. Even before Zimbabwe’s backlash
campaign, the SADC Secretariat and the Association had a standoffish relationship.
According to a former member of the Association’s leadership, the Secretariat viewed
the lawyers group as ‘too noisy’ and tended to avoid informal contact. In addition, the
group’s observer status in the SADC has remained in a ‘gray area’. The group does
not want to formalize its relationship to the community because, according to this
official, registered NGOs are pressured to ‘toe the line’ of the member states and the
Secretariat.162
The lack of a close relationship with the Secretariat is one reason why the SADC
Lawyers Association has moved twice since it was established in 1999 – first, in 2003,
from its initial home in Pretoria, South Africa, to Gaborone, Botswana, and again in
2011 from Gaborone back to Pretoria.163
The first move was in hopes of working more
closely with the Secretariat.The second reflected the difficulty of partnering with SADC
officials and the reality that more businesses, law firms and NGOs are based in Pretoria.
Capacityconstraintsalsounderminetheinfluenceof theSADCLawyersAssociation.
Unlike the EALS, which is funded by mandatory dues from individual lawyers, the
158
	 Interview with Human Rights Advocate L, Arusha, Tanzania (30 July 2013).
159
	 Interview with Official from the Pan African Lawyer’s Association, Arusha, Tanzania (30 July 2013).
160
	 East Africa Law Society, supra note 55, at 30 (emphasis in original).
161
	 Ibid., at 44.
162
	 Interview with a Former Official of the SADC Lawyers Association, Gaborone, Botswana (9 August
2013).
163
	 Interview with Officials of the Law Society of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana (8 August 2013).
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324 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
Association is dependent on dues collected by national bar associations. National
associations often fail to pay or are late in forwarding dues. The lack of stable funding
forces the Association to rely on volunteers, making it more difficult to file complaints
or amicus briefs with the Tribunal.164
Dispersed geography is also a factor. The SADC Lawyers Association and most
regional NGOs are based in Pretoria, South Africa, while the SADC Secretariat is based
in Gaborone, Botswana. The Tribunal’s seat is in Windhoek, Namibia, and procedural
rules require that all cases be filed in person. Summit meetings rotate around major cities
in the 15 member states. This dispersion makes it more difficult for lawyers and NGOs to
develop informal and formal contacts and relationships with SADC judges and officials.
The lack of a strong and cohesive SADC bar association has created space for the civil
societystagetobeoccupiedbyforeign-fundedNGOssuchastheOpenSocietyInitiativeof
Southern Africa (supported by the Soros Foundation) and the Southern Africa Litigation
Centre (jointly funded by Soros and the International Bar Association). While these
NGOs hire skilled human rights lawyers, they make easy targets for political leaders like
Mugabe, who discredit them as thinly veiled fronts for Western nations seeking to interfere
with the internal politics of African nations.165
The location of these foreign-funded
NGOs in the more constitutionally progressive South Africa adds to this perception.
For all of these reasons, the SADC Secretariat mostly sidelined the civil society
groups that rallied to save the Tribunal. As noted above, foreign-funded NGOs repeatedly
protested their exclusion from meetings at which political leaders debated the
Tribunal’s fate.The SADC Lawyers Association fared little better. Instead, it focused on
public statements and lobbying government officials.166
These tactics helped to secure
the support of the Ministers of Justice for compromise proposals, but they were insufficient
to overcome Zimbabwe’s intransigent opposition.
C  Sub-Regional Parliaments as Potential Venues for Opposition
Politics
Parliamentary bodies associated with regional and sub-regional integration projects
may provide another venue for resisting attempts by national executives to circumvent
community procedures, including those protecting international courts against political
backlashes. Many will find this claim surprising. Conventional wisdom holds that
regional legislatures are, with the possible exception of the European Parliament, little
164
	 Ibid.
165
	E.g., Permanent Mission of the Republic of Zimbabwe to the United Nations, Statement of Patrick
A. Chinamasa (MP), UN Human Rights Council (June 2006), available at www.icnl.org/news/2006/07-
10_Zimbabwe.pdf (last visited 17 March 2016).
166
	 See SADC Lawyers Association, Whither the SADC Tribunal: Report of Regional Colloquium on the SADC
Tribunal, Johannesburg (March 2013), at 19–20, available at www.sadcla.org/new1/sites/default/files/
Report%20of%20the%20Regional%20Colloquium%20on%20the%20SADC%20Tribunal_1.pdf (last
visited 17 March 2016); SADC Lawyers Association, Statement on SADC Tribunal, Regional Governance
Issues, 16 August 2013 (condemning the decision to strip private litigant access to the Tribunal), available
at http://www.igd.org.za/index.php/research/international-diplomacy/sadc-institutions/5328-sadclawyers-association-statement-on-sadc-tribunal-regional-governance-issues
(last visited 18 March 2016).
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 325
more than talk shops. This is largely true for the ECOWAS Parliament, which lacked any
legislativepowersorbudgetaryapprovalauthorityuntila2014institutionaloverhaul.167
The SADC Parliamentary Forum is even weaker. It is not formally recognized as a community
institution and does not coordinate its activities with other SADC initiatives.168
The situation in East Africa is different. The members of the EALA are elected from
their respective national parliaments in proportion to the strength of each member
country’s political parties. The sub-regional legislature is also financially and politically
independent from the member states. As the Nyong’o litigation aptly demonstrates,
these attributes make the EALA an attractive venue for opposition politicians.
They also provide opportunities for parliamentarians to support international court
judges against attacks by national executives.
The EALA was an early supporter of the EACJ in at least three important ways. First,
the Assembly passed resolutions urging the EAC Summit to appoint the inaugural
group of sub-regional judges and to upgrade the registrar of the Court to an executive
position.169
Second, three EALA members brought the very first case to the EACJ – a
challenge to the authority of the Council of Ministers to supervise the Assembly’s legislative
agenda. Notably, the EALA as a body supported the suit over the objections of
the EAC Legal Secretariat.170
The EACJ sided with the Assembly, a decision lauded by
civil society groups – whom the court had allowed to file amicus curiae submissions – as
a milestone for upholding the rule of law in East Africa.171
Third, the EALA has lobbied
to increase funding for the EACJ to ensure that the court can continue to hear suits
raising human rights issues.172
By supporting the activation of the EACJ, bringing its
first case and publicly supporting the inclusion of a human rights mandate, the EALA
167
	 In 2014, the member states expanded the Parliament’s powers to include approval of the community
budget, certain oversight responsibilities for ECOWAS organs and the appointment of community officials.
‘Finally ECOWAS Enhances Power of ECOWAS Parliament’, African Examiner (15 December 2014),
available at www.africanexaminer.com/finally-ecowas-enhances-the-powers-of-the-ecowas-parliament/
(last visited 17 March 2016).
168
	 SADC Treaty, supra note 80, Art. 9(1), which establishes SADC institutions, does not mention the
Forum. But see SADC Tribunal, Bookie Monica Kethusegile v.  SADC Parliamentary Forum, Case No.
SADC 02 (2009) (asserting that a SADC Summit decision elevated the Forum to a SADC institution);
see also S. Kingah, EU’s Engagement with African Sub-Regional Parliaments of ECOWAS, SADC, EAC
and AU, UNU-CRIS Working Papers W-2012/8 (2012), at 9, available at www.cris.unu.edu/fileadmin/
workingpapers/W-2012–8.pdf (last visited 17 March 2016).
169
	 See East African Legislative Assembly, Eight Years of EALA: 2001–2009 (September 2009), at 9 (noting
that the EALA passed a resolution urging the Council of Ministers to appoint EACJ judges and a registrar
to establish their terms of service).
170
	 Ontheobjectionsof theEACLegalCounsel,seeEALALegislativeAssembly,OfficialReportof theProceedings
of EALA, 59th Sitting – First Assembly: First Meeting-Fifth Session, 6 December 2005, available at www.
eala.org/key-documents/doc_details/70-6-december-2005.html (last visited 17 March 2016).
171
	EACJ, Mwatela v. EAC, Application No. 1 of 2005, Ruling, 1 October 2006 (Tanzania), at 15.
172
	 S. Bageine, Budget Speech of the EAC for FinancialYear 2013/2014 to the EALA, 30 May 2013; see also
Roundtable on Strengthening the Implementation of Human Rights in the EAC Region: The Role of the
East African Legislative Assembly, Arusha, Tanzania (27 May 2011) (urging the East Africa Legislative
Assembly to advocate for increased resources to enable the EACJ to effectively carry out its human rights
protection mandate), available at www.wfd.org/upload/docs/Communique%20-%20Launch%20of%20
Human%20Rights%20Handbook%20in%20EALA.pdf (last visited 17 March 2016).
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326 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
provided an additional venue to defend the sub-regional judges against the wrath of
national executives.
5 Conclusion
This article has described three credible attempts to sanction sub-regional international
courts in Africa for rulings that criticized the behaviour of national governments.
In ECOWAS, the Secretariat followed procedures that enabled civil society
groups to oppose the Gambia’s court-curbing campaign, preventing officials from colluding
behind closed doors to hobble the fledgling sub-regional court. Even though
Gambian President Jammeh’s proposals were the most modest of the three backlash
attempts we analyse, they failed to secure the support of other ECOWAS member
states.
In East Africa, Kenyan government officials called rushed, unofficial meetings to
circumvent EAC decision-making processes. The speed of Kenya’s response, and the
small number of EAC member states, made it difficult for civil society groups to thwart
these extra-legal efforts. Still, Kenya’s Attorney General failed to accomplish the government’s
more radical goals: the EACJ was not disbanded; its Kenyan judges were not
removed from office and the government ultimately complied with the offending EACJ
ruling.
In the SADC, national political leaders eventually acquiesced to Zimbabwean
President Mugabe’s demands, allowing his blocking of judicial reappointments to
de facto suspend the Tribunal and later agreeing to strip the right of private access.
But this successful backlash was hard fought. The SADC Secretariat and sympathetic
government officials initially countered Mugabe’s legal arguments, pushed for compromises
and repeatedly returned the issue to the Ministers of Justice and Attorneys
General for further study rather than agree to Mugabe’s demands. Indeed, Zimbabwe’s
efforts to discredit the legal validity of the Tribunal and its rulings in the Campbell
cases failed. In the end, however, Mugabe’s persistence, tenacity and wily political tactics
won out.
We have argued that successful governments sanctioning efforts depend on two
factors – the decision by community secretariats to follow or circumvent procedures
that require consultations with non-state actors and the mobilization strategies of
human rights groups and lawyers associations in support of the courts. In ECOWAS,
Secretariat officials adhered to procedural rules for notifying civil society groups and
facilitating their participation in key meetings. Public and private lobbying by these
groups helped to reframe the Gambia’s court-curbing initiative as a self-interested
reaction to rulings that exposed the country’s abysmal human rights record. In the
EAC, Kenya rapidly convened unofficial meetings to circumvent more deliberative consultation
procedures, creating a fait accompli of court reforms that, while less severe
than what the government initially wanted, have nonetheless affected the EACJ’s
subsequent trajectory. In the SADC, Zimbabwean officials relied on public spin, misinformation,
closed-door Summit meetings and a relentless campaign by the lionized
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Backlash against International Courts in West, East and Southern Africa 327
nationalist leader, Robert Mugabe, who blocked Tribunal reappointments and wore
down moderate governments opposed to the backlash.
In closing, we address three broader theoretical questions that arose as we conducted
our research and in presenting our findings: (i) why did sub-regional judges
rule against states instead of avoiding decisions that were likely to provoke negative
reactions; (ii) why were sub-regional Secretariats easier for governments to control
than sub-regional courts and (iii) were differences in judicial appointment rules part
of a rational plan to limit the courts’ powers?
Whydidjudgesnotanticipate,andthusavoid,provokingthebacklashes?Thetimebetween
interim and final rulings provided sub-regional judges with information about member
state preferences and an opportunity to back down from looming confrontations
with governments. When we asked the judges why they remained unyielding in the
face of strident government opposition, they cited their obligation to follow the law.
This is hardly a surprising justification, but it is also a rational and strategic response.
If judges are seen as caving in to political demands and ignoring the law, their authority
and raison d’etre may be called into question. On the other hand, expansive rulings
create easy targets for political rebuke. This may explain the post-backlash caution
exhibited by the ECOWAS Court and the EACJ in fashioning remedial awards to prevailing
private litigants.
Yet this does not explain the SADC Tribunal’s confrontational approach to
Zimbabwe, both in the initial Campbell rulings and in subsequent contempt orders.
The SADCTribunal’s former president, Ariranga Pillay, is fiercely independent, and, to
this day, he strongly defends the rightness of the Tribunal’s decisions. The judges were
also arguably channelling sympathy for the rule-of-law advocates in Zimbabwe as well
as frustration with SADC political institutions, which were unwilling to call Zimbabwe
to task for numerous violations of the law.
Why do sub-regional judges act with greater independence in comparison to sub-regional
Secretariats? The judges on the courts we examined, although clearly aware of the
limits of their authority, displayed greater willingness to act independently than did
Secretariat officials. Lawyers may find this unsurprising, but the reasons for this difference
are worth underscoring, since political scientists and politicians often expect all
supranational actors to be easily influenced agents of states. First, Secretariats exist to
facilitate member state cooperation and to promote Community objectives, tasks that
require close collaboration with governments. Second, Secretariats are not expected
to follow legal procedures in the scrupulous way that judges do when adjudicating
cases.Third, Secretariat officials tend to be diplomats or individuals with national government
experience or aspirations, while judges on Africa’s sub-regional courts come
from, and often return to, high-level national judicial appointments. For example,
the SADC Tribunal President Pillay was Mauritius’ chief justice from 1996 to 2007,
which may explain his unwillingness to brook Mugabe’s intimidation tactics.
Was the ECOWAS Court designed to be more independent, and the EACJ and the SADC
Tribunal designed to be more vulnerable? The ECOWAS Court has a different structure
than its sub-regional counterparts. It has an express human rights jurisdiction,
and the member states as a group have repeatedly supported and even bolstered the
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328 EJIL 27 (2016), 293–328
court’s authority. The creation of the Judicial Council, the professional independence
of the Secretariat, and the rejection of the Gambia’s backlash effort all reflect a deeper
governmental commitment to the ECOWAS Court as an adjudicator of human rights
complaints.
This does not imply, however, that the analogous structures of the courts in the
SADC and the EAC reflect the rational design choices of sovereignty-jealous states.
Governments in East Africa have refrained from conferring human rights jurisdiction
on the EACJ and regularly contest the Court’s backdoor adjudication of human rights
suits. And the EACJ Appellate Division – itself a result of the backlash – provides a
mechanism to reverse more expansive First Instance rulings. Yet both chambers of
the EACJ remain stubbornly independent.173
The SADC Tribunal’s fate also cannot be
explained by rational design. The appointment procedure that Zimbabwe exploited to
suspend the Tribunal appears to be more of an oversight than an intentional tool for
court curbing. And the Tribunal’s key rulings, which involved the politically incendiary
issue of minority white landowners, risked generating a backlash that even a
court with more judge-friendly appointment rules may not have survived.
That international court rulings often elicit negative reactions from defending
states is old news.Yet most of these responses are the stuff of ordinary politics. A government
that publicly criticizes judicial rulings, drags its feet in implementing a judgment
or only partly remedies legal violation is not engaging in a concerted backlash
campaign to destroy the court or radically curb its powers. Nor do such actions prove
that international court rulings, in the aggregate and over time, are unhelpful to those
who seek to pressure governments to revise challenged laws and policies.
At some point, however, a state’s negative reaction crosses the line between ordinary
and extraordinary politics, creating an existential threat that requires civil society
groups, lawyers, international officials and others to mobilize to save the tribunal.
If and when such threats arise elsewhere in the world, the credible backlashes against
three similarly situated sub-regional courts in Africa – and their divergent outcomes
– will provide important guideposts. The key finding of our research is that transparency
and adherence to process limit the political space for aggrieved states to react and
enable tribunal supporters to mobilize against court-curbing proposals.
173
	 Gathii, ‘Saving the Serengeti: Africa’s New International Judicial Environmentalism’, 16 Chicago Journal
of International Law (2016) 386.
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