4 Anyangwe/Extrajudicial killings of women in Africa the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter) assume an obligation to give effect to the rights therein enshrined. By becoming a party to that instrument a state ipso facto recognises the rights in it and assumes a general obligation to adopt legislative or other measures to give effect to those rights. Under article 1, State parties to the Charter ‘recognise the rights, duties and freedoms enshrined in [it] and … undertake to adopt legislative or other measures to give effect to them’.5 The obligation under article 1 is complemented by another, imposed in article 25 requiring State parties ‘to promote and ensure … respect’ of the rights in the Charter and ‘to see to it that the … rights are understood’. These broad obligations are absolute and immediate, encompassing an obligation to recognise, an obligation to adopt measures, and an obligation to promote and ensure respect of rights.6 Formal recognition by the State is of practical importance for effective implementation within the domestic sphere: When a society recognises that a person has a right, it affirms, legitimates, and justifies that entitlement, and incorporates and establishes it in the society’s system of values, giving it important weight in competition with other social values.7 If a State is in breach of its obligation to recognise, that in itself would be tantamount to a breach of the relevant provision of the Charter and also a violation of the foundational principle of treaty law, pacta sunt servanda, entitling any other State party to take action under article 47 or 49. Aggrieved individuals cannot file a complaint based only on breach of that principle since they are not party to the treaty, and may only file a complaint in those instances where the action or inaction of the state party violates any of the rights guaranteed in the Charter.8 A State party to the Charter is also under an obligation to adopt such legislative or other measures as may be necessary to give effect to the rights in the Charter. This means the State must develop and enforce a national legal system and an appropriate national human rights infrastructure that is protective of human rights and is adequate to respond to claims of violation. 2.2 Killings by state actors Extrajudicial killings by state actors may be clustered into three groups,9 namely, politically targeted killings, arbitrary application of 5 Likewise, under article 2 of the ICCPR, each State Party to the Covenant ‘undertakes to respect and to ensure to all individuals within its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the … Covenant’. 6 C Anyangwe ‘Obligations of States Parties to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights’ (1998) 10 African Journal of International and Comparative Law 625 629. 7 L Henkin The age of rights (1990) 44. 8 Anyangwe (n 6 above) 630. 9 Centre for Governance and Human Rights (CG & HR) ‘Unlawful killings in Africa’ (2014) 13 www.cghr.polis.cam.ac.uk (accessed 12 October 2016).