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6 Democratization Scripts and Bandwagoning in Africa D ozens of countries joined the NHRI bandwagon after 1990, showcasing the role of international diffusion. Especially at the regional level, neighboring countries emulated each other, while international organizations and regional networks actively fostered the creation of these institutions. If earlier decades had set the normative foundations for the concept of an NHRI, the 1990s saw rising institutionalization. Beginning with the drafting of the seminal Paris Principles in 1991 and the promotion of NHRIs at the Vienna World Conference two years later, the notion of an NHRI was championed and popularized. Even before Vienna, however, resolutions within the United Nations focusing on NHRIs had picked up momentum after 1987, appearing biannually until the Paris Principles were issued. As standard setting rose, capacity building and technical assistance followed in its wake. Two other global and coacting forces acted as transmission belts for the proliferation of these institutions. First, the end of the Cold War did not only elevate the place of human rights discourse globally; it led also to the independence of numerous Eastern European countries. Second, and closely related, a wave of democratization seemed to spread worldwide, with many authoritarian regimes collapsing. Both trends created conditions of norm ambiguity, as regimes looked to create new institutions and constitutions; and in a globally sanctioned democratizing context, an emphasis on human rights seemed natural. With the Paris Principles in place, NHRIs became a fairly standardized model to be borrowed, adapted, and transported across borders. democr atization scripts 107 Africa was no exception, and NHRIs diffused across the continent after 1990. By the end of the 1990s, almost the majority of countries, over two dozen, had created human rights bodies. As Dejo Olowu notes, “Whether as a result of genuine concern for effective human rights monitoring, promotion and protection, or for the purposes of appeasing the curious international community, all that is certain is that the establishment of human rights commissions became a vogue in African countries in the 1990s.”1 By the end of 2011, moreover, when the first round of the UN system of Universal Periodic Review (UPR) was completed, virtually all states in Africa had agreed to create an NHRI. A few factors are immediately striking about the proliferation of NHRIs across Africa. First, many of these NHRIs were created in the context of regulatory moments or in the face of transnational human rights pressures. In other words, NHRIs were one institution in a larger bundle of broader reforms undertaken by states that were following a script for what it was to be a democratizing , liberalizing regime, one that would appeal to (and appease) Western states in a post–Cold War context. Second, the role of former colonial powers was significant, as both France and the British Commonwealth promoted the creation and reform of these institutions, including via technical assistance. In this regard, former British colonies were more likely to adopt a complaintshandling body, while former French colonies borrowed the model of a consultative agency. Despite these and other differences, the dominant preference in the region was to label the institution a “commission,” reflecting a localized dynamic of emulation. A tipping point in the region was reached when the first continental meeting of NHRIs was held in Yaoundé, Cameroon, in 1996; the second would be in Durban, South Africa, in 1998, both convened by the Organization of African Unity.2 The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, moreover, called on all governments in 1996 to create or strengthen NHRIs.3 And in 1998, the commission granted NHRIs observer status, giving states an additional incentive to create these ever popular bodies.4 Two broad pathways are evident in the diffusion of NHRIs in Africa in the 1990s. On the one hand, NHRIs in some countries have accompanied the drafting of new constitutions and larger scale political transitions, or regulatory moments . In many cases, these were member states of the British Commonwealth. On the other hand, some countries have created NHRIs in the context of more limited liberalization, itself in response to transnational criticism of ongoing abuses, especially in Francophone Africa.5 The first pathway has been related to nominally stronger NHRIs, at least at the level of institutional design, whereas the second pathway tended to result in weaker bodies. Diffusion across Commonwealth States in the 1990s Even before the Cold War ended, the Commonwealth had been promoting human rights in general and NHRIs in particular. A series of declarations highlighted the central...

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