Abstract
The end of the Cold War brought an opening, as African countries restored civilian rule, multiparty politics, and market economies. New constitutional orders provided the best opportunity since independence to renegotiate capital punishment, most famously after the end of apartheid in South Africa. As countries such as Sierra Leone and Rwanda emerged from devastating conflict, another dimension of the death penalty debate emerged in the context of transitional justice. A new continental jurisprudence came from the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which found violations of the right to a fair trial in several famous decisions. Finally, an emerging anti-death penalty civil society placed capital punishment on domestic human rights agendas beginning in the 1990s as a space opened for promising human rights litigation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
J.M. Mbaku, Constitutionalism and the Transition to Democratic Governance in Africa, in J.M. Mbaku and J.O. Ihonvbere, The Transition to Democratic Governance in Africa (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003) 113–116.
J. Hatchard, M. Ndulo, and P. Slinn, Comparative Constitutionalism and Good Governance in the Commonwealth: An Eastern and Southern African Perspective (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 23.
J.G. Gros, Introduction: Understanding Democratization, in Gros ed., Democratization in Late Twentieth-Century Africa: Coping with Uncertainty (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998) 18–19.
Swaziland Executes Eight, New York Times (July 3, 1983) (retrieved from LexisNexis); No Noose Is Still Bad News, The Evening Standard (London) (January 17, 2002) (retrieved from LexisNexis).
J. Waliggo, The Main Actors in the Constitution-Making Process in Uganda, in G. Hyden and D. Venter eds., Constitution-Making and Democratisation in Africa (Pretoria, South Africa: Africa Institute of South Africa, 2001) 50–52, 57–62;
B. Odoki, The Search for a National Consensus: The Making of the 1995 Ugandan Constitution (Kampala, Uganda: Fountain Publishers, 2005) 186, 199, 202–203.
G. Barrie, The Constitution of Malawi 1995: A Fresh Breeze in Central Africa Journal of South African Law (1997) 762, 764.
M.A. Burnham, The Death Penalty in East Africa: Law and Transnational Advocacy, in M. Mutua ed., Human Rights NGOs in East Africa: Political and Normative Tensions (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009) 268.
A. Novak, The Global Decline of the Mandatory Death Penalty: Constitutional Jurisprudence and Legislative Reform in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014) 140–141.
T. Curry, Cutting the Hangman’s Noose: African Initiatives to Abolish the Death Penalty, Human Rights Brief 13:3 (2006) 41–42.
O.A.S. Jammeh, The Constitutional Law of The Gambia (Pittsburgh, PA: Rosedog Books, 2011) 3.
H.B. Jallow, Journey for Justice (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2012) 344–346
A. Novak, Legislative Note: The Abolition of the Death Penalty for Drug Offenses in The Gambia, Commonwealth Law Bulletin 38 (2012) 63.
See A. Novak, The Rule of Law, Constitutional Reform, and the Death Penalty in The Gambia, Richmond Journal of Global Law and Business 12:2 (2013) 217–218.
W.A. Schabas, African Perspectives on Abolition of the Death Penalty, in Schabas ed., The International Sourcebook on Capital Punishment (Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1997), 47.
J.D. Ohlin, Applying the Death Penalty to Crimes of Genocide, American Journal of International Law 99 (2005) 748;
T. Cruvellier, Court of Remorse: Inside the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010) 14.
J.D. Mujuzi, Issues Surrounding Life Imprisonment after the Abolition of the Death Penalty in Rwanda, Human Rights Law Review 9:2 (2009) 329–330.
M. Suma, The Politics of the Death Penalty in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone: An Opportunity for Reform or a Missed Opportunity? in M. Futamura and N. Bernaz eds., The Politics of the Death Penalty in Countries in Transition (New York, NY: Routledge, 2014) 166–168.
J.D. Mujuzi, High Crime Rate Forces Liberia to Reintroduce the Death Penalty and Put International Treaty Obligations Aside: What the Critics Missed? African Journal of International and Comparative Law, 17 (2009) 342.
K. Tronvoll, C. Schaefer, and G.A. Aneme, The “Red Terror” Trials: The Context of Transitional Justice in Ethiopia, in K. Tronvoll, C. Shaefer, and G.A. Aneme eds., The Ethiopian Red Terror Trials (Woodbridge, UK: James Currey, 2009) 1.
F. Elgesem and G.A. Aneme, The Rights of the Accused: A Human Rights Appraisal, in K. Tronvoll, C. Shaefer, and G.A. Aneme eds., The Ethiopian Red Terror Trials (Woodbridge, UK: James Currey, 2009) 48–49.
K. Tronvoll, C. Schaefer, and G.A. Aneme, Concluding the Main Red Terror Trial: Special Prosecutor v. Colonel Mengistu Hailemariam et al., in K. Tronvoll, C. Shaefer, and G.A. Aneme eds., The Ethiopian Red Terror Trials (Woodbridge, UK: James Currey, 2009) 140, 146.
Adrian de Bourbon, Human Rights Litigation in Zimbabwe: Past Present and Future, African Human Rights Law Journal 3 (2003) 195, 209–210.
A. Gubbay, Human Rights in Criminal Justice Proceedings: The Zimbabwean Experience, in M. Cherif Bassiouni and Ziyad Motala eds., The Protection of Human Rights in African Criminal Proceedings (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1995) 312.
L. Chenwi, Taking the Death Penalty Debate Further: The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in J. Yorke, ed., Against the Death Penalty: International Initiatives and Implications (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2008) 78–80.
For more on the active human rights jurisprudence of the ECOWAS Court of Justice, see J.T. Gathii, African Regional Trade Agreements as Legal Regimes (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2013) 279–282.
See E. Maxwell and A. Mogwe, In the Shadow of the Noose (Gaborone, Botswana: Ditshwanelo, 2006).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2014 Andrew Novak
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Novak, A. (2014). An Opening: The Death Penalty in an Era of Democratization. In: The Death Penalty in Africa: Foundations and Future Prospects. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137438775_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137438775_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-49409-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-43877-5
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political Science CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)