區域人權規約的普世性與獨特性分析：以非洲聯盟為例

This article aims to explore African regional human rights norms from the perspective of the universalism and relativism through analyzing the development of human rights laws in African Union. This paper also evaluates to what degrees of African human rights norms include characteristics of local culture and consist with other regional human rights norms. This article first focuses on the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and evaluates its localized attributes, and then analyzes the construction and functions of African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights. Furthermore, it compares African human rights institutions to other two regions: Europe and Americas, as well as the international human rights norms from the perspective of universalism. The findings support: (1) among all regional human rights regimes, African human rights regime is the one that includes the most local cultural and traditional characteristics, especially in the economy, social, and cultural rights, as well as the rights to development. Second, the African human rights supervising institution is highly similar to the functions and organization of European and American intuitions. Third, the African case reveals that debate between universalism and relativism is not zero-sum and both approaches could compatible and coexisted. Fourth, the writing and implications within documents of African norms seem to limit the practice and interpretation of norms. Fifth, while African human rights laws are very comprehensive as other regions, human rights practice is shanking and challenging by real politics in Africa. The inspection and practice in this region are needed to be improved, especially in the civil and political rights. Finally, African human rights norms show a practical balance between universalism and relativism, and it is a lesson for other non-Western regions, especially for the East Asia with relativism-universalism debate, to build its localized human rights law and regime.