(2018) 2 African Human Rights Yearbook 59 violation of art 20 of the Charter or any of the other articles alleged to have been violated. The Commission interpreted the right of self-determination to mean ‘the right of colonised and (sic) oppressed people to free themselves from domination’,36 and no more. It is submitted that the Commission erred in law when it interpreted the right of selfdetermination the way it did. The content of self-determination under the African Charter is much wider in scope than what the Commission understands it to be. The right to freedom from domination is a distinct right which inheres in ‘colonized or oppressed peoples’ only. The Commission states in paragraph 125 that the right of oppressed people to free themselves from domination is reserved for colonised peoples. But the concept of oppressed peoples in article 20(2) cannot legitimately be confined to the colonial context. Under a human rights perspective, the concept of ‘peoples’, in the expression ‘oppressed peoples’, is understood in a broader legal context. That context is one that concerns the relation between the people of a country and its government, a relation that is no longer a matter of exclusive municipal law but of international law because oppression involves a variety of human rights violations. The Commission further reasoned that article 20 of the Charter has a particular historical context in the sense that it is one of the provisions of the Charter that was aimed at addressing the situation of Africans who remained under colonial domination at the time the Charter was drafted.37 The Commission went on to posit in para 126 that [i]n post-colonial Africa, the right to self-determination can be enjoyed within the existing territories and with full respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States parties to the Charter. This reasoning is not supported by any authority. It is most improbable that a provision as robust as article 20 could possibly have been written into the Charter merely to cater for a temporary situation – the remaining situation of white colonial domination in Namibia and South Africa, the only two surviving colonial situations as of 1981 when the Charter was drafted. It is submitted that this is an incorrect interpretation of article 20. There is a wealth of authority to the effect that self-determination, a continuing collective human right, applies even in a non-colonial context.38 Besides, it is a notorious fact that apart from white colonialism, colonialism might continue in postcolonial Africa in the form of neo-colonialism or in the form of blackon-black colonialism, that is, the colonisation of an African country by an adjacent African state, or the domination or marginalisation of a people or nation by an oppressive state or by another group within that 36 37 38 Cabinda case (n 29) para 125. Cabinda case (n 29) para 124. For example, the views of former ICJ Judge Rosalyn Higgins in R Higgins ‘Africa and the convention on civil and political rights during the first five years of the Journal: Some facts and some thoughts’ (1993) 5 African Journal of International and Comparative Law 55 at 64: “many … African countries have accepted that self-determination … is an ongoing right, and is not limited to colonial peoples only’.