Posted: 18 September, 2025 Filed under: Mariam Kamunyu | Tags: ACHPR, advocacy, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, African feminists, Akina Mama wa Afrika, Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, AU Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls, AUCEVAWG, civil society actors, ethical implications of exclusion, Fòs Feminista, feminist movements, gender-based violence, international law, legality, Participatory Legitimacy, power imbalances, ravaux préparatoires, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, women and girls in Africa
Author: Dr Mariam Kamunyu
British Academy International Fellow, School of Law and Politics , Cardiff University
In February 2025, the African Union (AU) adopted the African Union Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (AUCEVAWG), hailed in some corners as a historic legal instrument addressing gender-based violence across the continent. And yet, for many African feminists, the moment was shocking and bittersweet. The adoption marked the culmination of a drafting process that, by most accounts, was characterised by exclusion and opacity, particularly of the very feminist movements whose decades of advocacy laid the groundwork for such a treaty. This article proffers that the lack of meaningful participation by a cross-section of civil society actors undermines the convention’s political and normative legitimacy, even if its legal validity remains intact.
Under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, NGOs and civil society actors are not recognised as formal parties to treaty-making processes, thus their exclusion does not invalidate a treaty. However, a purposive reading of participation considers the broader political and ethical implications of exclusion, especially when the treaty concerns those most affected by its subject matter. In fact, from a feminist perspective, the exclusion of women’s rights actors in such an instance is not neutral; reproducing the very power imbalances that international law ought to challenge.
Increasingly, participation is being reframed in international law, not only as a question of legitimacy but also as one with implications for legality. As comparative experiences show, civil society objections based on non-participation have in some cases led to a treaty’s collapse or severely limited its impact. A ready example is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which was negotiated in 2010 without meaningful engagement from civil society, leading NGOs to raise concerns about the treaty’s potential to undermine fundamental rights. These objections led the European Parliament to reject ACTA in 2012, preventing its entry into force. In other areas of international law, such as environmental protection, treaties like the Aarhus Convention and the formally recognise NGOs and human rights defenders’ substantive right of public participation. These examples affirm that participatory legitimacy is taking on a harder currency in international law.
Against this backdrop, the process leading to the adoption of the AUCEVAWG raises important questions about transparency and inclusiveness. Available accounts suggest that much of the drafting process unfolded online, with some select in-person meetings, both with limited visibility and unclear avenues for broader stakeholder engagement. Overall, there appears to have been no structured or public mechanism to ensure the effective participation of well-known regional feminist organisations and practitioners. Additionally, the absence of travaux préparatoires, official records documenting the treaty’s procedural and substantive development, further limits the ability to assess whether the process achieved participatory legitimacy. Compounding this, the text of the treaty remained unavailable for some time after its adoption, and the text itself includes an inconsistency on its history: its preamble records that the resolution to negotiate the Convention was adopted in February 2025, the same month the treaty itself was adopted. This discrepancy clearly suggests that the process was rushed or insufficiently documented.
Beyond procedural legitimacy, inclusion is particularly indispensable in the area of violence against women, where informed feminist participation is integral to shaping effective and context-responsive frameworks. In fact, the consequences of excluding feminist legal experts in developing the AUCEVAWG are already evident. For instance, in analysis undertaken by the Initiative for Strategic Litigation in Africa (ISLA), they note that the designation of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) as the implementing body in article 14 of the Convention amounts to a key implementation gap, in light of longstanding concerns about ACHPR’s institutional capacity and concerning adjudication practices. This raises serious questions about whether the Convention’s commitments can be effectively enforced. Other organisations such as Fòs Feminista and Akina Mama wa Afrika have similarly highlighted limitations, ranging from weak survivor-centred framing, omissions of key protections and weakly framed state obligations. Overall, in written briefs and many a feminist convening which I have sat through, feminist actors are raising red flags on the Convention’s transformative potential and highlighting concerns that may hinder its capacity to serve as a truly feminist human rights-based response to violence against women and girls in Africa.
Finally, treaties do not implement themselves. Successful ratification, popularisation, domestication, enforcement and monitoring of the Convention require active buy-in from the very civil society actors, who were side-lined during development. Its exclusionary entry compromises its ability to inspire the mobilisation necessary for its success. There is therefore a very real risk that the AUCEVAWG remains a normative white elephant in the African human rights system. Struggling to find resonance within the movements that have, until now, been the engine of progress on women’s rights accountability Africa.
About the Author:
Dr Mariam Kamunyu is a feminist legal scholar and international human rights lawyer. As a British Academy International Fellow at Cardiff University, she is theorising African feminist judgment projects. Her research and expertise centres on visibilising and influencing the gender transformation of laws, institutions and practices in the African human rights system. [mariam.kamunyu@gmail.com]
