Human rights and the politics of regime legitimation in Africa: From rights commissions to truth commissions

This chapter argues that the proliferation of national human rights commissions and truth commissions represents an emerging global trend in statist appropriation of human rights discourse for regime legitimation. Human rights have become the new political ideology. In the post-Cold War world, human rights have become the most powerful creed for political legitimation. The proliferation of national human rights institutions across Africa in the 1990s started a trend in statist appropriation of human rights discourse for political legitimation and has continued with the spread of truth commissions. The establishment of national human rights commissions in several African countries was driven by similar political considerations. Political considerations also informed the creation of Kenya’s national human rights institution in 1996. The politics of regime legitimation that has characterized the establishment and processes of human rights commissions is also increasingly evident in the work of truth commissions that have proliferated across the continent.