Angola Wants a Pan-African Court of Justice

Angola has become the first country to ratify the Malabo Protocol, paving the way for the creation of a true international African court of justice. What does Angola hope to gain from this move, and why now? 

Following a lengthy and prolonged process, on 5 March 2024, the Embassy of Angola at the Permanent Mission of the African Union (AU) informed the AU that Angola had ratified the Protocol on Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights (commonly known as the Malabo Protocol) on 30 January 2024, and requested that a date be set for the deposit of the letter of ratification. Angola duly made the deposit on 31 May 2024, becoming the first country to do so. 

The Malabo Protocol was adopted one decade ago in June 2014 but can only enter into force once it has been ratified by 15 countries. The Protocol’s core aim is to merge the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights with the Court of Justice of the AU to form a new African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights. This new court is expected to have an expanded jurisdiction across 14 categories of punishable international crimes. These include a mixture of ‘core’ and ‘new’ categories: genocide; crimes against humanity; war crimes; the crime of unconstitutional changes of government; piracy; terrorism; mercenarism; corruption; money laundering; trafficking in persons; trafficking in drugs; trafficking in hazardous wastes; illicit exploitation of natural resources; and the crime of aggression. The court would also deal with interstate disputes and human rights...