THE 2026 ARUSHA ROADMAP – FROM DIALOGUE TO ACTION: Outcomes of the African Court Coalition 2026 Stakeholders’ Platform
The African Court Coalition (ACC) 2026 Stakeholders’ Platform, marking the historic 20th Anniversary of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Court), served as a diagnostic platform for the continental human rights architecture. The primary conclusion of this convening was that the African human rights system stands at a critical crossroads where past jurisprudential successes are being threatened by a growing culture of limited access, State non-compliance and other technical bottlenecks. To safeguard the Court’s future, the Coalition has adopted ‘The Arusha Roadmap’ Outcome document. This outcome document serves as a strategic framework for development of concrete initiatives aimed at enhancing the Court’s effectiveness and relevance within a rapidly evolving technological landscape, ensuring it remains a steadfast pillar of justice for all African citizens. The below recommendations apply to a diverse group of stakeholders including the Coalition itself, the African Court, State actors, CSOs, Academia, litigants, NHRIs, the African Union and all other key stakeholders.
I: DISMANTLING SYSTEMIC BARRIERS TO JUDICIAL ACCESS
1. Operationalize the ‘Banjul-to-Arusha Bridge’ by pressuring for immediate operationalization of the 2025 Commission-Court Referral Guidelines to bypass the Article 34(6) Declaration bottleneck.
2. Decrease the 60% African Court’s cases inadmissibility rate through intensive technical training for CSOs and practitioners on admissibility requirements and the exhaustion of local remedies.
3. Execute the ‘Gambia Model’ for Bar Associations by establishing specialized subcommittees within every national Bar to monitor, report, and lead high-level political lobbying for Protocol ratification and Article 34(6) deposits.
4. Target ‘progressive administrations’ through a strategic mapping of States with recent leadership changes to coordinate high-level advocacy missions.
5. Adopt the ‘constructive exhaustion’ doctrine by litigating cases that challenge the Court to waive exhaustion requirements when domestic remedies are proven to be systemically biased or where State non-compliance makes local recourse illusory.
6. Pilot ‘preliminary rulings’ to allow national high courts to request direct interpretive guidance from the African Court on human rights treaties, creating a judicial shortcut that bypasses executive bottlenecks.
II. ENFORCING COMPLIANCE AND SOVEREIGN ACCOUNTABILITY
7. Mandate Public Compliance Hearings within twelve months of every merit decision, following the Children’s Rights Committee model to scrutinize State progress and ensure non-execution remains in the political spotlight.
8. Develop ‘regional contempt of Court’ Jurisprudence to move beyond finding simple violations toward issuing punitive financial interests and coercive sanctions against persistently defiant Member States and specific office-holders.
9. Supporting finalisation of the PAP Model Law on Implementation to help national parliaments create trigger mechanisms for the automatic enforcement of reparations.
10. Support the refinery of the ‘survivor clause’ in national legislation to ensure that domestication laws are drafted to remain applicable and enforceable even in the absence of a constitution or during periods of military/transitional rule.
11. Advocate for institutionalization and financing of National Focal Points through national legal frameworks integration with dedicated, ring-fenced budget lines that facilitate monitoring and implementation missions.
12. Hardwire automatic enforceability (in States where it is not automatic) by advocating for amendment of relevant legislations to ensure regional judgments are categorized as directly executable.
III. PIONEERING NEW FRONTIERS AND STRATEGIC LITIGATION
13. Strengthen coalition-based strategic litigation at the African Court on emerging and high impact human rights issues.
14. Execute the ‘Justice Pincer’ Strategy to tackle the nexus of human rights and corruption, by holding accountable at the African Court, States that fail to regulate non-state actors.
15. Forge partnerships with NHRIs to utilize their subpoena and investigative powers to build technically superior evidentiary records that make violations unavoidable for judges.
16. Combat State-led internet shutdowns by launching strategic litigation using the continental economic loss argument to move governments beyond human rights rhetoric toward practical accountability.
17. Modernization of digital evidentiary standards in the Court’s Rules of Procedure to allow for the admission of authenticated metadata, geolocation, and timestamps to address online harassment and State-led surveillance.
18. Adopt the ‘3 C’s’ and ‘lowest hanging fruit’ Strategy for case selection, focusing on Causality, Consistency, and Client-centered cases against the most compliant respondent States to secure transferable landmark results.
IV. JURISPRUDENTIAL IDENTITY, GENDER, AND INCLUSIVITY
19. Forge an Authentic African Jurisprudence by deliberately integrating indigenous philosophies such as Ubuntu into judicial reasoning to enhance the Court’s cultural legitimacy and continental resonance.
20. Institutionalize a mandatory gender lens by applying genderized reasoning to all applications from the onset and implementing trauma-informed protocols to prevent the revictimization of survivors.
21. Scale the feminist judgments model and increase the representation of women on the legal aid roster to ensure regional jurisprudence is contextualized through the lived experiences of African women.
22. Uphold the ‘social model’ of disability in expert testimony to highlight systemic barriers and demand reasonable courtroom accommodation (including sign language) as a fundamental procedural right.
23. Pioneer litigation for citizenship rights, specifically focusing on the ability of women to pass nationality to their children and the protection of the rights of persons with albinism.
V. MODERNIZING ADJUDICATION AND STRATEGIC VISIBILITY
24. Streamline adjudication via ‘human-in-the-loop’ AI to reduce judgment drafting time by 75%, while utilizing Practice Directions 9 and 35B to allow for digital filing (WhatsApp/Email) for remote defenders.
25. Support the African Court Implementation Database to reduce the current 88% information gap on State compliance.
26. Democratize Justice via ‘architects of visibility’ by lobbying to bridge the 90% communication budget gap and utilizing hyper-local community radio to reach the indigenous communities in local languages.
27. Establish Searchable Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) in every State to facilitate transparency and the systematic ‘cross-fertilization’ of judicial standards across the continent.
VI. SUSTAINING INSTITUTIONAL INTEGRITY AND EVOLUTION
28. Secure judicial quality via the Arusha Initiative and monitor judicial vacancy cycles to ensure a bench defined by proven human rights competence.
29. Operationalize the transitional Court of Justice by launching a diplomatic campaign to secure the final seven ratifications of the Sharm El-Sheikh Protocol.
30. Form a unified sentinel front for AU Reforms to monitor institutional transitions and ensure that the merger of courts does not dilute the existing protective mandate or judicial independence.
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