(2017) 1 African Human Rights Yearbook 175 levied is that states can join without any questions asked about their previous human rights record.34 In Africa, both as regards courts and other co-operation, the subregional organs tend to be more active and influential than the panregional ones.35 If the all-African framework faces many challenges, important developments can be observed in the sub-regional integration systems36, in particular in the East African Community (EAC)37 and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).38 A common trend in them is that they started as regional courts and gradually either implicitly or expressly developed a human rights mandate. The EAC presents an interesting example of how such systems and courts can take an active role for human rights. The EAC consists of few states but includes some of the larger and more developed ones in Africa. It includes a regional court among its institutions, the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) whose mandate is, briefly expressed, to ensure the adherence to law in the application of and compliance with the EAC Treaty. The EACJ (like the EAC) are not new, but rather re-established organs of the defunct East African Community and East African Court of Appeal.39 However, despite still being only temporarily operational (since 2001, pending that the Council of Ministers of EAC determines if there is need for a full-time court), the Court has become perhaps the most activist of the regional courts. An interesting example of this activism is how the EACJ assumed the right to deal with human rights issues, despite this not having been explicitly included in its competence.40 The Court made clear in the 2007 case of Katabazi and 21 others v Secretary General of the EAC and Uganda41 that it was not going to interpret its limited competence over human rights issues in a restrictive manner. It said: While the Court will not assume jurisdiction to adjudicate on human rights disputes, it will not abdicate from exercising its jurisdiction of interpretation under 34 AK Wing ‘Women’s rights and Africa’s evolving landscape: the Women’s Protocol of the Banjul Charter’ in JI Levitt (ed) Africa: mapping new boundaries in international law (2010) 25-26. 35 M Forere ‘Is discussion of the United States of Africa premature? Analysis of ECOWAS and SADC’ (2012) 56 Journal of African Law 36-37. 36 For a historical analysis of the gradual inclusion of human rights into the mandate of sub-regional integration organisations in Africa see LN Murungi & J Gallinetti ‘The role of sub-regional courts in the African human rights system’ (2010) 7 SUR International Journal on Human Rights 119-141. 37 The East African Community (EAC) was established, as a regional intergovernmental organisation, in 2000. It has seven Partner States: Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, the United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda. 38 ECOWAS members are Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo. 39 http://eacj.org/?page_id=19 (accessed 6 July 2017). 40 A Possi ‘Striking a balance between community norms and human rights: the continuing struggle of the East African Court of Justice’ (2015) 15 African Human Rights Law Journal 194. 41 http://eacj.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/NO._1_OF_2007.pdf (accessed 6 July 2017).