Introduction The African Regional System 4 The African system for the protection of human rights, like its Inter-American and, in the past, European, counterparts consists of a Commission and a Court. Unlike the other regional systems, provision for a Court is not made in the major regional human rights treaty itself, but rather in a Protocol thereto, which entered into force in January 2004. The Court’s first sessions have been concerned with procedural issues, and at the time of writing it had yet to issue a judgement, so this chapter will be concerned exclusively with the work of the Commission, which will continue to function. It should be noted from the outset that there is no enforcement mechanism for the Commission’s decisions and recommendations, which have been widely ignored by States. As the Commission has noted, “The main goal of the communications procedure before the Commission is to initiate a positive dialogue, resulting in an amicable resolution between the complainant and the state concerned, which remedies the prejudice complained of. A pre-requisite for amicably remedying violations of the Charter is the good faith of the parties concerned, including their willingness to participate in a dialogue.”556 Unfortunately, such willingness on the part of States has been notably absent in a number of cases. The African system is the youngest of the three regional systems, and some of the issues considered below have been examined in only a small number of cases. The African Commission has, however, made increasing reference to the jurisprudence of the other international and regional bodies, and it is to be hoped that it will continue in this vein of referring and contributing to a coherent system of international law. 4.1 Definitions Article 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) provides: “Every individual shall have the right to the respect of the dignity inherent in a human being and to the recognition of his legal status. All forms of exploitation and degradation of man, particularly slavery, slave trade, torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment and treatment shall be prohibited.” Thus, unlike in other systems, torture and other forms of ill-treatment are listed as examples under a more general prohibition of exploitation and degra- 126 556 Organisation Mondiale Contre La Torture and Others v Rwanda, AfrCommHPR, Communication Nos. 27/1989, 46/1991, 49/1991, 99/1993, 20th session, 21–31 October 1996, §19.