Introduction
This text gives a vital evaluation of the individuality, authorized significance, and silences in Decision 627 on the human rights scenario within the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) adopted by the African Fee on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Fee or Fee) on 11 March 2025 throughout its 82nd Unusual Session.
Decision 627 is the primary the African Fee adopts for the reason that resumption of M23 navy actions in japanese DRC in November 2021 (S/2022/967, para 47). The Fee urged all events to uphold the African Constitution on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Constitution) and to have interaction in dialogue for a swift decision of the battle. It additionally strongly condemned acts of violence in opposition to civilians, together with rape, the conscription of kid troopers (Abelungu 2019), the burning of prisons, and focused killings. It reminded all events of their obligations to respect the precept of border intangibility and the prohibition of unconstitutional adjustments of presidency. These suggestions are far-reaching than these the African Fee made below Decision 241 it adopted in July 2013 on M23-related armed actions. Up to now, the African Fee has adopted 10 country-specific Resolutions on the scenario of human rights within the DRC (Biegon 2024, 861).
Decision 627 exceptionalism
Decision 627 stands out in a number of methods. First, it marks a departure from the Fee’s historically passive stance towards this disaster. Up to now, the Fee issued weak and inconsequential statements (see right here and right here) that didn’t articulate the related authorized rules relevant to the battle or the authorized penalties of the actions taken by varied events. Second, the Decision positions the Fee as the one AU organ to explicitly recognise the presence of the Rwanda Defence Drive (RDF) within the DRC.
Third, Decision 627 follows two latest Resolutions adopted respectively by the United Nations Safety Council (UNSC) and the Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and optimistic developments earlier than the African Court docket on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Court docket) on the battle. Each Councils explicitly acknowledged Rwanda’s navy intervention within the DRC and referred to as for its withdrawal. The Human Rights Council, particularly, has additionally referred to as for the deployment of a human rights investigation mission within the DRC and the institution of an impartial fee of inquiry (A/HRC/RES/S-37/1). In the meantime, the African Court docket heard preliminary exceptions raised within the case Democratic Republic of Congo v. Rwanda on 12 and 13 February 2025 a month earlier than Decision 627 thus elevating extra consciousness among the many authorized group concerning the battle and probably paving the best way for franck discussions about Constitution violations amongst members of the African Fee. On 26 June 2025, the African Court docket rejected Rwanda’s preliminary exceptions.
The Authorized Significance of Decision 627
The African Fee’s energy to undertake resolutions derives from its promotional mandate to ‘formulate and lay down rules and guidelines aimed toward fixing authorized issues regarding human and peoples’ rights and elementary freedoms upon which African governments could base their laws,’ which it workouts alongside its mandate to guard human and peoples’ rights by, inter alia, the consideration of inter-state and particular person communications. Decision 627 is a country-specific Decision wherein the Fee ‘expresses’ its considerations a few state get together’s human rights scenario and recommends measures to assist the state and different related entities meet their obligations below the African Constitution. Nation-specific Resolutions are completely different from thematic in addition to administrative/logistical Resolutions (Murray 2019, 637). They type a part of ‘secondary smooth regulation.’ (Biegon 2018, 195)
Decision 627 is just not binding however carries a ‘persuasive impact as [an] authoritative interpretation of the treaty [the African Charter in casu]’ the state involved has duly ratified and undertaken to ‘undertake legislative or different measures to present impact’ to rights supplied for below the African Constitution. Decision 627 doesn’t create new state obligations however restates what state events have already undertaken to implement as a part of their treaty obligations. It derives its character and ‘the significance which attaches to [it], from the integral position of the [African Commission] below the African Constitution.’ The duty to carry out a treaty in ‘good religion’ below the 1969 Vienna Conference on the Regulation of Treaties (VCLT) (Article 26) might also entail that state events ‘give consideration’ (ILC, 2011, 239) to interpretative views of our bodies they’ve established to watch the implementation of the stated treaty.
African Fee Resolutions don’t ‘replicate subsequent state apply inside the which means of Article 31(3)(b)’ of the Vienna Conference on the Regulation of Treaties (VCLT) as typically held (Biegon (2018, 196). They’re, nonetheless, ‘necessary pointers within the steady efforts to make sure the conscientious implementation of human rights conventions.’ (ILC, 2016, para. 24) Whereas noting sure caveats, the Worldwide Regulation Fee (ILC) concluded in its fourth report on subsequent agreements and subsequent apply in relation to the interpretation of treaties: ‘[a] pronouncement of an professional physique below a human rights treaty can not, as such, represent subsequent apply below Article 31(3)(b), since that provision requires {that a} subsequent apply within the utility of the treaty establishes the settlement of the events.’ (ILC, 2016, para. 42)
Room for Enchancment
Decision 627 must be improved in varied elements. Firstly, the remedy of state armed forces just like the Rwanda Defence Drive (RDF) throughout armed conflicts can’t be totally the identical as that of the insurgent teams (AFC/M23) even after they battle in coalition, as a result of variations in authorized standing, accountability mechanisms, and obligations below worldwide regulation. Decision 627 identifies the RDF and armed teams as ‘the AFC/M23/RDF grouping’ or ‘group’ thus suggesting they type one and distinctive get together to the armed battle. Out there proof demonstrates that the M23/AFC is an autonomous armed group (S/2022/967, para 30) that conducts navy operations alone or with the help of the RDF. On the identical time, the RDF leads its navy operations ‘unilateraly or collectively’ with M23/AFC (S/2022/967, paras 49 & 60; S/2023/990, paras 29 & 30; S/2024/432, paras 30-34). Thus, three situations ought to have been distinguished: RDF navy operations, M23/AFC navy operations and joint navy operations.
Moreover, Decision 627 doesn’t explicitly identify Rwanda among the many important violators of DRC’s territorial integrity by its navy presence nor does it outline vital acronyms corresponding to ‘RDF’, which might have enabled the common reader to grasp whom the Fee is referring to and thereby draw the suitable authorized inferences concerning the addressees of the Decision and their obligations as state events to the African Constitution. From a authorized standpoint, it’s the DRC and Rwanda, amongst different states straight or not directly concerned within the battle, which are events to the African Constitution, not the collective formation known as ‘AFC/M23/RDF.’ Whereas it’s well-established that non-state armed teams are additionally sure by worldwide human rights norms within the context of armed conflicts (Clapham 2006), the omission of direct reference to Rwanda raises questions. Except the Fee intentionally selected a cautious formulation to keep away from diplomatic backlash or additional pressure its already susceptible independence vis-à-vis a state that has continously resisted regional human rights oversight (Traoré 2022, 39-58; Makunya 2021, 1248-1250; Viljoen 2018, 66), the rationale behind such a hedged, equivocal method stays legally ambiguous. In actual fact, different our bodies didn’t shrink back from ‘naming and shaming’ Rwanda. But, the African Fee is just not unfamiliar with allegations regarding Rwanda’s navy actions within the DRC, on condition that the primary inter-state communication it adjudicated involved accusations of Rwanda’s navy operations and the ‘systematic’ looting of Congolese sources (Abelungu & Cirimwami 2018, 9-10).
The African Fee’s failure to attract concrete authorized penalties from the actions of the ‘AFC/M23/RDF’ coalition and Rwanda’s navy operations on the territory of a state get together to the African Constitution is one other hole. The Fee additionally missed the chance to suggest daring and strong measures to deliver these human rights violations to an finish, particularly on condition that the continuation of those armed actions is the direct reason for ongoing violations of quite a few rights protected below the Constitution. In contrast, in its Decision on the human rights scenario within the DRC (A/HRC/RES/S-37/1), the UNHRC recognized three vital authorized implications that the African Fee might have emulated. First, it demanded that the M23 ceases all hostilities and withdraws from occupied areas and that the RDF ends its help to the M23 and instantly withdraws from Congolese territory. Second, it determined to urgently set up a fact-finding mission to analyze critical human rights violations and breaches of worldwide humanitarian regulation in North and South Kivu. Third, it established an impartial fee of inquiry, composed of three specialists, to proceed the work initiated by the fact-finding mission. Equally, the UNSC Decision 2773 referred to as on the RDF to stop its help to the M23 and to right away and unconditionally withdraw from Congolese territories. None of those classes have been learnt by the Fee. But, it’s conscious of those mechanisms: it has beforehand undertaken fact-finding missions (e.g., Ethiopia, Burundi, Sudan, South Sudan) and established commissions of inquiry (e.g., Ethiopia) (Makunya, 2022).
Secondly, and relatedly, Decision 627 is timid in merely ‘reminding’, ‘urging’, and ‘exhorting’ different actors within the disaster, together with Rwanda, to adjust to their obligations below the African Constitution. The majority of the obligations reiterated by the Fee are directed on the DRC, regardless of the broadly acknowledged proven fact that the AFC/M23/RDF coalition is conducting illegal navy operations on Congolese territory. Though the Decision does comprise two suggestions that would apply to the AFC/M23/RDF coalition and to Rwanda, they aren’t framed as such, thereby missing the mandatory authorized readability and specificity. These pertain to: (i) the duty to respect the precept of the intangibility of borders inherited from decolonisation (uti possidetis juris); and (ii) the prohibition of unconstitutional adjustments of presidency as established below the Constitutive Act of the African Union and the African Constitution on Democracy, Elections and Governance (African Democracy Constitution). Among the many events to the battle, solely Rwanda, not the DRC, has ratified the African Democracy Constitution, and is due to this fact straight sure by its provisions to chorus from perpetrating or facilitating any type of unconstitutional change of presidency.
Furthermore, the African Fee doesn’t make enough use of the advantage of hindsight by not additionally inserting duty on Rwanda for the duty to ‘take all needed measures to place an finish to impunity by guaranteeing that each one perpetrators of acts of violence are delivered to justice and prosecuted, together with by cooperation with the worldwide prison justice system.’ As documented (Masamaki & Difuila 133-134), each Rwandan and Congolese nationals accused of committing critical crimes throughout previous conflicts in japanese DRC, and who subsequently sought refuge in Rwanda, have neither been prosecuted nor extradited, regardless of the existence of a number of worldwide arrest warrants issued by the DRC. But, the African Fee has beforehand affirmed the suitable of victims of worldwide crimes to an efficient treatment, together with entry to fact and reparations (Makunya, 2021, 1260).
Lastly, the African Fee’s framing of the battle’s temporality, that the battle between the M23/AFC/RDF and the DRC Nationwide Military (FARDC) resumed in January 2025, is way from correct. This framing finally excludes human rights violations dedicated for the reason that resumption of M23 navy actions in 2021. In its December 2022 report back to the President of the UN Safety Council, the Group of Consultants on the DRC notes (S/2022/967, para 47): ‘[t]he Group obtained proof of navy operations performed by RDF members in Rutshuru territory between November 2021 and October 2022. The Group notes that, since January 2022, at the least 5 RDF troopers have been arrested on the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’. These findings are corroborated by the report of the DRC UN Mission to the UN Secretary Common overlaying the interval between December 2021 and March 2022 (S/2022/252, para 17). Because it comes out of Decision 2773 of the UNSC (S/RES/2773 (2025) 2), the battle intensified in January 2025 because the M23/AFC/RDF took over the management of Goma and Bukavu however the battle itself and human rights violations predate January 2025.
Conclusion
The African Fee’s boldness in adopting a Decision on the human rights scenario within the DRC, whereby actors corresponding to Rwanda are referenced, albeit not directly, serves as a transparent reminder of the obligations incumbent upon each state and non-state actors to uphold the rights and values enshrined within the African Constitution. This initiative comes at a vital juncture, because the African Union continues to undertake a markedly cautious and to date ineffective method to resolving the battle, usually turning a blind eye and failing to name upon states fueling the disaster to respect their obligations below the Constitutive Act.
Regardless of its inherent limitations, Decision 627 gives a possible level of departure for a constructive dialogue amongst key human rights stakeholders on the continent, notably throughout classes of the Fee and in different related boards. Whereas it’s untimely to evaluate its concrete affect, civil society organisations could nonetheless use the Decision as a instrument for advocacy and mobilisation aimed toward holding each state and non-state armed actors accountable.
