Posted: 22 September, 2025 Filed under: Lakshita Kanhiya | Tags: African Union (AU) Assembly, AUCEVAWG, combat violence, Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (CEVAWG), displaced women, ensuring gender-responsive budgeting, free from violence, harmful labour, human rights, older women, questionable consultations, religious fundamentalism, right of women and girls, sexual and gender minorities, shrinking civic space, state obligations, travaux préparatoires, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT), vulnerable groups, women with disabilities
Author: Lakshita Kanhiya
Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA)
Introduction
In February 2025, the African Union (AU) Assembly adopted the Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (CEVAWG), a landmark instrument that seeks to strengthen the continent’s response to one of its most pervasive human rights challenges. The Convention affirms the right of women and girls to live free from violence (Article 2) and extends protection across both public and private spheres, including cyberspace and conflict settings (Article 3). It prescribes comprehensive state obligations from enacting laws to combat violence, ensuring gender-responsive budgeting, and establishing coordinated support services for survivors (Articles 4–5), to protecting particularly vulnerable groups such as displaced women, women with disabilities, and older women (Article 7). The text also contains progressive provisions on the world of work (Article 8), safeguards for girls against harmful labour (Article 9), preventive measures that outlaw customs or traditions invoked to justify violence (Article 10) and guarantees of access to justice and protection for human rights defenders (Articles 11–12).
Yet, behind these important affirmations and symbolic advances lies a troubling reality. The Convention was negotiated and adopted within an unusually compressed timeframe, raising questions about the depth of consultation and legitimacy of process. Its celebratory rhetoric obscures procedural and substantive gaps, vague and overlapping provisions, an expansive reservation clause, and a weak enforcement framework. Drawing from the framework of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT), this article interrogates the procedural and substantive deficiencies of AUCEVAWG, from its rushed adoption and lack of travaux préparatoires to its vague provisions, porous reservation clause, and absence of robust enforcement mechanisms. It situates the Convention within Africa’s broader human rights architecture, juxtaposing its symbolic affirmations against the persistent violence experienced daily by women and girls.
Half-baked, half ready?
The timeline alone raises critical questions. How could such a complex Convention be meaningfully drafted, negotiated, reviewed, and adopted within just two years from the Assembly Decision that mandated its creation? To be clear, the AU Assembly did signal high-level political will through its Decision Assembly/AU/Dec.865(XXXVI), adopted during the 36th Ordinary Session in February 2023. In that decision, Heads of State explicitly acknowledged that ending violence against women and girls is a prerequisite for achieving full gender equality and for realising Agenda 2063. They requested Member States, with the support of the AU Commission, to negotiate a new Convention and to submit it for adoption by the 37th AU Summit in 2024.
However, the very ambition of this timeline, presented as a demonstration of urgency and political will, became the first warning sign of the hasty process that followed. The rush to translate political declarations into a binding treaty with little room for robust consultation, thorough drafting, or careful review ultimately shaped the Convention’s structural weaknesses. Instead of allowing the instrument to simmer through careful debate and inclusive consultation, the Convention was fast-tracked in a manner that activists and civil society had long feared. AUCEVAWG, far from being a bold and transformative roadmap, emerges as a politically expedient compromise adopted with minimal transparency, questionable consultations, and significant blind spots. It reflects a deeper pattern of top-down lawmaking in the AU, one that sidelines feminist organisations and women’s rights movements whose expertise and lived realities should have been at the centre of such a process.
The deficiencies are compounded by the near-total absence of travaux préparatoires. Under Article 32 of the VCLT, preparatory works are crucial to clarifying ambiguous provisions and preventing absurd or unreasonable interpretations. Because AUCEVAWG was pushed through without a transparent or participatory drafting process, it now lacks the documentary record of debates, compromises, and intentions that could serve as interpretive anchors. This absence is not a mere technicality but a structural weakness. Without travaux préparatoires, contested concepts such as ‘African values’, ‘positive masculinity’ or the scope of permissible reservations are left entirely to state discretion, opening the door to regressive interpretations. Had robust preparatory works existed, they could have equipped civil society, monitoring bodies, and courts with the tools to hold states accountable and to safeguard the Convention’s object and purpose.
Beyond its substantive gaps, the Convention also suffers from noticeable linguistic, factual, and editorial flaws that further diminish its credibility. The most glaring example is the misstatement of the date of the Assembly Decision that initiated the drafting of the Convention (indicated as February 2025, though the decision was adopted in February 2023). Such an error in the preamble of a treaty is more than a clerical oversight, it exemplifies the consequences of rushing a process that demands accuracy and care. These errors are not cosmetic. A treaty intended to shape jurisprudence and national legislation on such a critical issue should have been polished to the highest standard. Instead, AUCEVAWG reads more like a first draft than a final, enforceable instrument. In this sense, its weaknesses are not only political but structural, exposing a deeper deficit in the treaty-making process where the urgency to adopt eclipsed the rigor, documentation, and clarity that the VCLT envisions as essential for credible law-making.
‘The hollow hope’
The preamble of CEVAWG is replete with familiar affirmations of Agenda 2063, the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol), and solemn declarations, but it offers little substance beyond symbolism. While the AU claims to be ‘aware that violence against women and girls continues unabated in Africa’, the Convention does little to confront the political and religious systems that sustain this violence. Instead, it settles for soft, undefined terms such as ‘positive masculinity’ and ‘African values’. In a context where appeals to culture and religion are routinely weaponised to restrict women’s rights, such vague language provides fertile ground for regression. The preamble, though exhaustive in citations, reads less like a visionary foundation and more like a patchwork of past declarations. It pays lip service to root causes such as unequal power relations and harmful practices but avoids confronting entrenched patriarchy, religious fundamentalism, shrinking civic space, and the active criminalisation of sexual and gender minorities.
The weakness of this rhetorical foundation is compounded by CEVAWG’s reservation clause (Article 19), which permits Member States to opt out of any provision, provided it does not ‘contradict the object and purpose’ of the Convention. While this mirrors standard treaty language under the VCLT and appears in other recent AU instruments, its presence here is deeply problematic for at least one moral reason.
For starters, the very fact that reservations are permitted at all in a treaty acknowledging violence against women and girls as a grave human rights violation sends the wrong signal and begs the question: Which obligations in the Convention could ever be considered not so essential that state parties may opt out of? Allowing carve-outs, even subject to later review, dilutes the treaty’s normative force and transforms what should have been a comprehensive, non-negotiable framework into a patchwork of commitments contingent on political will. To be clear, article 19 of the VCLT admits of treaties where reservations may be prohibited or only specified reservations may be allowed besides the general admonishing that reservations may not go against the ‘object and purpose’ of the treaty. One would have expected that a treaty such as CEVAWG that seeks to combat the existential threat of violence against women and girls in Africa would have much restrictive provisions on reservations beyond the general refrain of incompatibility with ‘objects and purpose’.
Furthermore, Article 26 of the VCLT enshrines the principle of pacta sunt servanda, requiring states to perform their treaty obligations in good faith. By leaving key provisions undefined, relying on soft language such as ‘positive masculinity’ and ‘African values’, and avoiding structural commitments such as an independent monitoring body, AUCEVAWG risks ratifications that are symbolic rather than transformative, contrary to the duty of good faith implementation. This pattern of avoidance extends to issues the Convention claims to address. While CEVAWG claims to be rooted in intersectionality, it erases the lived realities of sexual and gender minorities, especially lesbian, bisexual, and trans women. This glaring omission is not accidental, it reflects the political expediency of ignoring queer African voices, even when they are among the most targeted by gender-based violence. A genuine convention on ending violence against all women and girls would have made this explicit.
Perhaps one of the most glaring contradictions within the Convention lies in its superficial treatment of femicide. While the preamble briefly acknowledges femicide as one of the manifestations of violence against women and girls, and a definition is included in Article 1(d), the Convention fails to elaborate on or address femicide substantively in any of its operative provisions. There are no obligations imposed on States Parties to collect data on femicide, to investigate such killings as gender-based crimes, or to ensure justice for victims and their families. This omission is alarming given the rise in femicide cases across the continent from South Africa to Kenya to Nigeria, where women are killed daily with impunity. By failing to translate its recognition of femicide into binding obligations, the Convention misses a crucial opportunity to challenge one of the most extreme and irreversible forms of gender-based violence. The absence speaks volumes, casting doubt on the Convention’s authority as the primary instrument for the protection of women and girls from violence and its role as a catalyst for transformative change in Africa.
The Implementation Gap
Article 14 exposes one of the Convention’s most critical structural flaws – the lack of a dedicated monitoring and enforcement mechanism. Rather than establishing a robust accountability framework, CEVAWG delegates oversight to existing institutions, the African Commission and the African Court. Yet, both face very different constraints. The African Commission has long struggled with resource and capacity limitations, but its deeper challenge lies in the political constraints built into its mandate. Article 59 of the African Charter requires that the Commission’s activity reports be submitted to the AU Assembly for approval before publication, giving states effective control over what information is released. This provision has repeatedly been used to delay or block the publication of findings critical of governments, undermining transparency and accountability. By assigning CEVAWG’s monitoring to the Commission without addressing this political stranglehold, the Convention risks replicating a pattern in which serious violations are documented but never see the light of day. Long delays in the communications procedure of the African Commission will further hamper effective accountability.
The African Court, by contrast, does not primarily face capacity or resource deficits. Its challenge lies in access. Under Article 34(6) of its Protocol, individuals and NGOs can only bring cases directly if their state has deposited a special declaration. To date, very few states have done so, and the number is shrinking. Tunisia recently became the fifth state to withdraw its declaration (March 2025), following Rwanda (2016), Tanzania (2019), and Benin and Côte d’Ivoire (both in 2020). Out of 34 State Parties that have ratified the Court’s Protocol, only seven now allow direct access, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, The Gambia, Malawi, Mali, and Niger. This wave of withdrawals has had a chilling effect on the Court’s accessibility. While indirect access technically exists through referrals from the African Commission, this pathway has long been limited in scope and efficacy. In practice, the absence or withdrawal of Article 34(6) declarations shuts the door to justice for most African citizens and NGOs, undermining the very purpose for which the Court was created, to provide a continental judicial forum for the protection of human and peoples’ rights after domestic remedies are exhausted. When states actively block or revoke this avenue, they signal that regional accountability is subordinate to political expediency, eroding trust in the AU’s human rights system as a whole.
The absence of a dedicated CEVAWG monitoring mechanism is therefore particularly striking. Other instruments have benefited from creative institutional support within the Commission, for example, the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in Africa but that mandate remains tied to the Commission’s broader political and resource constraints. Given the gravity of violence against women and girls, there was reason to hope that CEVAWG would establish its own specialised body, mandated to monitor compliance, engage with states, and provide interpretative guidance. By comparison, at the global level, CEDAW is monitored by its own treaty body, which conducts regular state reporting, issues concluding observations, and considers individual complaints. That level of institutionalised oversight is entirely absent from CEVAWG. Its reliance on already overstretched or politically constrained AU organs leaves serious doubts about whether the Convention can meaningfully close the gap between lofty commitments and lived realities.
Where do we go from here?
Since the Convention was formally adopted by the AU Assembly in February 2025, the fate of the text is already sealed. However, its shortcomings can still be addressed through strategic legal and advocacy avenues. Article 18 of the Convention provides for an amendment process that can be triggered after 15 Member States ratify the instrument, allowing any State Party to propose revisions for consideration by the African Union Commission, the African Commission, and the Executive Council, before final adoption by the Assembly. This opens a path for a progressive bloc of states to champion crucial amendments, such as the establishment of an independent monitoring body and stronger accountability mechanisms. In parallel, civil society can advocate for interpretative guidance, similar to the general comments that complement the Maputo Protocol, to address CEVAWG’s conceptual and operational gaps. Furthermore, the ongoing ratification process itself provides an advocacy window. Governments can be urged to ratify with public commitments to progressive implementation, while national laws can be shaped to close the gaps left by the Convention such as criminalising femicide and ensuring inclusive protections. In short, while the text of CEVAWG is fixed, its interpretation, application, and evolution remain very much within the hands of determined advocates, responsive institutions, and bold political leadership.
As a result, while the AU hails CEVAWG as a historic milestone, those on the frontlines of gender justice and users of the African human rights mechanisms see it for what it truly is, a missed opportunity, wrapped in progressive rhetoric but undermined by haste, compromise, and political caution. The preamble may sing of equality, but the Convention itself dances around the hard truths. Now, as the Convention awaits ratification, the real work begins in pushing for amendments, developing interpretative tools, and mobilising domestic legislation that protects all women and girls, especially those most marginalised. Without these efforts, CEVAWG risks joining the growing list of symbolic texts, promising equality, but delivering little to those who need it most in a continent still waiting for justice.
About the Author:
Lakshita Kanhiya is a Legal Associate at the Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA) and a Doctoral Candidate and the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria.
