Emerging Human Rights: The African Political Economy Context

(Hardback)

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This book, a collaborative effort by Port-Harcourt University, Nigeria, and the University of Denver, deals with important theoretical considerations about human rights in Africa. The African contribution to the political economic approach to human rights has been especially significant and will continue to grow. This edited collection addressses both theoretical issues and actual case studies of human rights violations in the African context. Shepherd, a pioneer in African studies, provides a pathbreaking overview of the political economy of African human rights. The volume itself is divided into two sections: theory and issues and violations. In the first section, the contributors consider such theoretical questions as the problems and prospects of creating an equitable world order based on the global right to distributive justice; three generations of African people's rights; the relationship between underdevelopment and human rights violations in Africa; theological perspectives on human rights; and the African experience in human rights issues and violations. The second section addresses specific human rights issues and violations of those rights. Among the situations explored are the impact of revolutionary violence on development, equality, and justice in South Africa, and the effects of militarization, migrants, and refugees on African human rights. Also examined are the African context of human rights development and the impact of Ghanaian black feminism. A comprehensive bibliography completes the volume. The unique perspective provided by African scholars, along with European and American scholars of black Africa, makes this book an important addition to the literature of human rights and African studies.

Reviews

Readers who want a better understanding of how many African intellectuals interpret North-South relations will profit from this book. Its dozen chapters, all but four written by Nigerian scholars, criticize African governments in general, since these governments do not protect human rights, but rather abuse them. In Shepherd's words, the state is primarily the oppressive instrument of neocolonial elites who victimize their opponents.' Hence, institutionalized permanent nonjustifiable breaches' of human rights exist in Africa. Their solution requires a transnational movement uniting citizens of African nations with the poor and minorities of the center powers. Human rights mean very little within a context of mass poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, hunger, marginalization, and the general lack of basic human needs.'-Choice
"Readers who want a better understanding of how many African intellectuals interpret North-South relations will profit from this book. Its dozen chapters, all but four written by Nigerian scholars, criticize African governments in general, since these governments do not protect human rights, but rather abuse them. In Shepherd's words, the state is primarily the oppressive instrument of neocolonial elites who victimize their opponents.' Hence, institutionalized permanent nonjustifiable breaches' of human rights exist in Africa. Their solution requires a transnational movement uniting citizens of African nations with the poor and minorities of the center powers. Human rights mean very little within a context of mass poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, hunger, marginalization, and the general lack of basic human needs.'"-Choice

Author Bio

GEORGE W. SHEPHERD, JR. is Professor of International Relations, Graduate School of International Studies and Director of the Consortium on Rights Development, University of Denver. He is the author of The Trampled Grass (1987), and coeditor of Human Rights and Third World Development (1985). He is one of the founders of the American Committee on Africa and the African Studies Association, and Director of the Consortium on Rights Development (CORD) at the University of Denver. MARK O.C. ANIKPO is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Port-Harcourt in Nigeria. He is the author of of Poverty in Africa: An Introduction to the Sociology of Underdevelopment (1987) and Peasants and Politicians in the Nigerian Food Crisis (1987).