The African Commission organises several sessions each year (in-person or online) in order to discuss human rights issues affecting Africa and the advancement of their work. There are two types of sessions run by the African Commission: Ordinary sessions (public and private) and extraordinary sessions. Those sessions are generally held in Banjul, The Gambia, but can sometimes take place in a different African country, to reach more stakeholders (for instance, sessions have been held in Mauritania, Egypt, Tanzania, etc.).
The official working languages of the African Commission are those of the African Union: English, French, Portuguese, Arabic, Swahili, and Spanish (see Rule 38 of the Rules of Procedure of the African Commission and article 11 of the Protocol on the Amendments to the Constitutive Act of the African Union). Submissions and interventions can officially be made in any one of these languages. In practice, English and French are by far the main languages used at the African Commission. To a lesser extent, Portuguese and Arabic are also used, in part thanks to intense civil society mobilisation to promote them. Swahili and Spanish are almost never used. Documents are typically available in English, French, Portuguese, and Arabic, sometimes in English only. Simultaneous interpretation at the sessions of the African Commission is available in English, French, Portuguese, and Arabic.
The ordinary sessions are held four times a year and two of those sessions are public, meaning that CSOs and others institutions can attend and participate (generally April and October). Each ordinary session lasts around 20 days. During the public ordinary sessions, only the first 10 days are public and can be attended by CSOs . They are either held in person or in a hybrid format. The Secretary of the African Commission must communicate to the members the date and the venue at least 60 days prior to the session, but in practice it is sometimes less.
Extraordinary sessions are convened by the Chairperson of the African Commission at the request of the Chairperson of the AU Commission or the majority of the members of the African Commission, usually to discuss urgent human rights issues or situations. The last extraordinary session was the African Commission’s 36th, held in January 2023 in Banjul, covering, among other things, the situation in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia at the time.
To know how you can participate, see Chapter 3: Engaging with the African Commission during the sessions.
The African Commission also hosts conferences, workshops, events, and more on the topic of human rights in Africa. It also interacts with other AU institutions, fulfilling any mandate conferred onto it by said AU institutions.
