Event

Event Overview

This is a hybrid event. Please register here to attend virtually on Zoom. Lunch will be provided for in-person attendees.

International human rights law imposes a duty to respect, protect, promote and fulfill human rights on states and establishes various mechanisms and normative standards to ensure they meet these obligations. But what happens when a state in question struggles with upholding this duty because it is beset by political, security, or governance challenges that undermine its ability to act as a guarantor of rights? Join us for a conversation with Ibrahima Kane, a leading expert, litigator and advocate within the African human rights system, for a deep dive into the structural challenges driving the most salient human rights issues in the Sahel region today. Drawing from decades of practical experience, he will share insights on conducting human rights work in the context of state fragility and propose solutions tailored to the Sahel that go beyond mere crisis management or short-term security responses.

About the Speakers:

Ibrahima Kane is a Special adviser to the Executive Director of the Open Society Foundation-Africa, where he leads the African Union Advocacy Program. in charge of the Africa Union Advocacy. Previously, he served as a senior lawyer heading the Africa Program at INTERIGHTS. Before that, he was a founding member of RADDHO, a Senegalese human rights organization focused on public education and women’s rights across five West African countries. A qualified lawyer in both Senegal and France, Kane has worked closely with, and conducted advocacy and litigation before, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the ECOWAS Court of Justice, and the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

Abadir M. Ibrahim (moderator), J.S.D., is the Associate Director of the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School. His current research focuses on African approaches to human rights which studies, among other things, the iteration and practice of human rights as impacted by Africa’s (post)colonial, religious and traditional heritages. He is the co-editor of Between Failure and Redemption: The Future of the Ethiopian Social Contract (Northwestern Univ., 2022) and Righting Human Rights through Legal Reform: Ethiopia’s Contemporary Experience (Addis Ababa Univ., 2020).