Public lecture: "The African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights @20: An 'African solution' to African problems?"

 

Chair: Prof Dr Frans Viljoen, University of Pretoria

 

Topic of Public Lecture:

‘The African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights @20: An 'African solution' to African problems?’ 

 

The year 2026 marks 20 years since the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Union's judicial human rights organ, opened its doors. Taking stock of the Court’s  jurisprudence over these two decades, and the surrounding evolving context, the lecture assesses to what extent the Court has lived up to expectations that it would address and provide ‘solutions’ to ‘African problems’, and that it would adopt a distinctly ‘African’ approach in doing so. 

 

Practical information

Tuesday 24 March

17:00–18:30

Auditorium A, Campus Aula, Faculty of Law and Criminology, Ghent University

Followed by a reception in the Faculty Lounge

Contact: Prof Dr Yves Haeck Yves.Haeck@UGent.be

 

We warmly invite you to register here for the public lecture and reception:

https://event.ugent.be/registration/PublicLectureMarcelStormeChair

 

Each year, the Faculty of Faculty & Criminology, in consultation with the non-profit organisation Fonds Willy Delva, awards the Marcel Storme Chair to an international renowned person. In 2026, the Chair will be conferred upon Professor Frans Viljoen.

Professor Viljoen currently serves as the Acting National Research Foundation South African Research Chair in International Constitutional Law at the University of Pretoria and as Director of the Global Campus of Human Rights. He was Director of the Centre for Human Rights at the University of Pretoria (South Africa) from 2007 to 2023.

He is widely recognised as a leading authority on the African human rights system and presently serves as a member of the Advisory Committee of the UN Human Rights Council. Over the course of his distinguished career, he has held visiting professorships at several eminent institutions, including the University of Oxford, American University, Addis Ababa University, Essex University, the Sorbonne, Abo Akademi University, Universidade Eduardo Mondlane and the UN University for Peace.