Cameroon’s Continued Failure to Cooperate with Global Human Rights Institutions
Cameroon, a country facing ongoing violence and human rights violations, continues to show scant regard for the decisions and interventions of international and regional human rights institutions.
According to Amnesty International,
“repeated requests [to Cameroon] for fact-finding missions have gone unanswered, hindering efforts to assess the situation and advocate for justice”.
The impacts of this lack of respect for key international human rights bodies are felt very keenly by survivors of torture such as Ebenezer Akwanga, a long-time client of REDRESS. As long ago as 2011, the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC) found multiple breaches by Cameroon of the International Covenant on Civil and Political rights, a human rights treaty to which it is a party. Since then, Cameroon has taken no concrete steps to implement the UNHRC’s decision.
As a political activist, Mr Akwanga had campaigned peacefully for the rights of the people of Southern Cameroon. Following his arrest in 1997, he suffered a range of serious human rights violations for the next six years, including torture, incommunicado detention, and a variety of forms of abuse in prison including being held in grossly overcrowded and unhygienic conditions, lack of proper food and wholly inadequate medical care. He was also tried before a military tribunal, despite being a civilian, in a trial that fell far short of the minimum requirements for a fair hearing.
In 2011, the UNHRC found that Cameroon had violated various articles of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, including Article 7 (the prohibition against torture). It also found that the State had an obligation to provide him with an effective remedy, including a review of his conviction, an investigation of the alleged events and prosecution of the persons responsible, and adequate reparation, including compensation. Since then, no remedy whatsoever has been offered, agreed or implemented.
Cameroon has instead sought to make their compliance conditional upon Mr Akwanga undertaking steps which were not contemplated by the Committee, or which are impossible for him to fulfil without significant risk of being subject to further human rights violations, including insisting that he return to Cameroon and allowing himself to be re-arrested. Cameroon’s failure to implement the decision also highlights the challenges faced by the UNHRC in seeking to enforce its own decisions, a problem which is particularly acute when a State such as Cameroon appears determined to resist international accountability efforts.
REDRESS has now made a formal submission to the Special Rapporteur on Follow-Up for the UNHRC to address these concerns. The submission urges the Special Rapporteur to be more proactive in seeking the implementation of the UNHRC decision, to engage directly with Cameroon on the topic, and to pass on relevant information to other UN bodies (such as the Human Rights Council, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and the UN Committee against Torture) to enlist their help in increasing the pressure on Cameroon to implement the decision.