Senegalese lawyer Idrissa Sow elected new Chair of African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights

Senegalese lawyer and judge Idrissa Sow has this week been elected the new Chairperson of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR). Since 2021 he has served as one of the ACHPR’s eleven elected Commissioners, assigned to Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, and Guinea.

Legal and political leaders, NGOs, rights organisations, and more have all converged on The Gambia’s capital Banju this week for the 85th Ordinary Session of the ACHPR.

“From the moment the doors opened, there was palpable expectation — leadership change, delegates speeches, and thousands of Africans coming together to discuss Human Rights in our continent,” shared the Arusha Initiative on social media.

An autonomous treaty body of the African Union, the ACHPR consists of eleven Commissioners, elected by the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union. Commissioners serve in their personal capacity, in an independent and impartial manner. The ACHPR's mandate includes:

• Promoting and protecting human rights in Africa;
• Interpreting provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, (the foundational treaty of the African human rights system that came into force in 1986); and
• Formulating principles for legislation on fundamental freedoms.

The newly elected Chair has expertise in the Law of International Organisations, Human Rights Litigation, International Criminal Law, Community Law, Rule of Law, Fundamental Rights, Public International Law, and Administrative Litigation.

While an ACHPR Commissioner the past four years, Sow has served as Chair of the Working Group on the Death Penalty, Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Killings and Enforced Disappearances in Africa, and Vice-Chair of the Working Group on Specific Issues Related to the Work of the Commission. He has also been a member of the Working Group on Older Persons and People with Disabilities in Africa; the Working Group on Communications; and the Resolutions Committee.

During his legal career, Sow, who holds a doctorate in public law, has worked in a variety of key roles including Counsellor at the Supreme Court of Senegal, legal auditor at the ECOWAS Court of Justice, lecturer at the Faculty of Law and Political Science of the Université Cheikh Anta Diop, an auditor at the Supreme Court of Senegal, and sitting judge at the Regional Court Hors Classe, Dakar, among others.

Sow will now lead and coordinate ACHPR activities, with the help of Hatem Essaiem, who has served as a Commissioner since 2017 and was this week elected Vice-Chair. Essaiem earned a law degree in 1979, before going on to work in Tunisia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as a Tunisian ambassador to several countries, a Director of the African Union, and a lecturer in international relations at Tunis Central University.

Essaiem has also been Chair of the Committee on Prevention of Torture in Africa.