As this Annual Report testifies, the Centre was in 2012 as busy as ever with academic programmes and a variety of projects aimed at promoting and protecting human rights in Africa. Two highlights should be mentioned. The first is the coming of age of the African Human Rights Moot Court Competition. The Moot turned 21 in Maputo, Mozambique, as the Law Faculty of Eduardo Mondlane University became the first of the hosting institutions to organise the Moot for the second time.

The second highlight is the award, by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, of its NGO Human Rights Prize to the Centre, on the occasion of the Commission’s 25-year anniversary. Through this award, the Commission not only recognised the Centre’s role in supporting and collaborating with the African Commission (for example, by placing interns, publishing its ‘law reports’, co-hosting the Moot Court Competition, and supporting the mandate of various Special Rapporteurs), but it also acknowledged the contribution of the Centre’s extended family. This family consists of the partner institutions with whom we have over the years collaborated on the LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa) and the Moot, as well as the LLM graduates. These graduates are not only agents for change and activists for human rights all over the continent but are also the face of the Centre to the world.

- Taken from the introduction to the Centre for Human Rights Annual Report 2012 by Frans Viljoen, Director, Centre for Human Rights.

Full report