“Every individual shall be entitled to the enjoyment of the rights and freedom recognised and guaranteed in the present Charter without distinction of any kind such as race, ethnic group, colour, sex, language, religion, political or any other opinion, national and social origin, fortune, birth or other status.“
The principle articulated in Article 2 of the African Charter can be understood as comprising two interrelated components. The first concerns the scope of application: it makes clear that the right to non-discrimination applies specifically to the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Charter. On a plain reading, this suggests that the prohibition against discrimination is not a standalone entitlement but one that operates in conjunction with other guaranteed rights.
The second component outlines the substantive content of the right. It expressly prohibits distinctions based on a wide range of protected grounds, including race, ethnic group, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national and social origin, fortune, birth, or other status.
At first glance, this provision may appear to guarantee that all persons are entitled to the full range of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights contained in the Charter. These include, for example, rights to political participation and self-determination. However, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has recognised that certain rights may be subject to lawful and proportionate limitations—particularly in relation to non-nationals or minority groups—depending on the specific context.
For instance, in Communication 71/92, Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des Droits de l’Homme v Zambia, the Commission acknowledged a state’s sovereign authority to regulate immigration and address unlawful residency. Nevertheless, it found that the Zambian government’s mass expulsion of non-nationals was discriminatory on the basis of national origin, and thus in violation of Article 2 of the Charter.
Similarly, in the consolidated Communications 27/89, 46/91, 49/91, and 99/93 — Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture and Others v Rwanda — the Commission considered allegations of mass human rights violations, including arbitrary arrest, detention, and summary executions of Tutsis and political opponents. It concluded that these acts constituted discrimination on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, and political opinion, in contravention of Article 2.
Article 2 of the African Charter bears structural resemblance to Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Both provisions are typically understood as accessory rights—they prohibit discrimination only in relation to the enjoyment of other substantive rights. In this sense, the right to non-discrimination does not exist in isolation but is intrinsically linked to the exercise of other protected freedoms.
It is important to clarify, however, that while the European Court of Human Rights has recognised that non-discrimination provisions can sometimes take on an autonomous function (as seen, for example, in Sommerfeld v Germany [GC] (2003)), this interpretive stance has not yet been explicitly adopted by the African Commission. As such, under current jurisprudence, Article 2 of the African Charter generally functions as an interpretive and enforcement principle rather than a freestanding right.
