African Leadership in Human Rights: The Gambia and The Commonwealth Human Rights Commission,1977–83

Commonwealth Law Ministers Meetings were usually one of the more mundane gatherings for government representatives on the international calendar. Chief legalists and jurists from the Commonwealth met triennially to discuss niche topics, such as copyright law and paralegal training, agreeing to little of consequence. It was therefore a shock to delegates at the August 1977 Winnipeg Meeting when Alhaji M.L. Saho, The Gambia’s Attorney General, submitted a memorandum to impose new obligations upon member states. Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings (CHOGM) at Singapore in January 1971 and London in June 1977 produced official declarations on a shared commitment to human rights and fundamental freedoms. Saho warned the Commonwealth of Nations risked being weakened by accusations of hypocrisy without combining these statements with effective measures for promotion and protection. The illusion of action could not mask inaction for long. The Gambia’s memorandum offered a remedy in the form of a Commonwealth Human Rights Commission (CHRC). This would enable the Commonwealth to match its principles with concrete policies and rights-talk with state responsibilities. Saho concluded with a call to arms, stating ‘the time had come for those who were in a position to speak, speak out and to speak loudly’. ¹ In response, few countries spoke out and none came close to speaking as loudly as The Gambia.

The campaign for a CHRC offers a unique window into the international history of human rights in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Scholars typically demarcate much of this period as ‘the breakthrough’ for human rights as a major international movement. ² The dominant narrative privileges the achievements of North Americans and Western Europeans. ³ Another school of thought is challenging that perspective by identifying earlier ‘breakthrough’ moments in the 1950s and 1960s, when the anti-colonial and post-colonial world played a crucial role in the development of human rights norms, laws, and institutions. ⁴ Yet, in the period after the 1960s, the scholarship tends to depict the Global South in sweeping terms. At worst, it presents post-colonial actors as too jealous of their sovereignty to be believers in international human rights. At best, it presents anti-colonial nationalists as prioritising or committing to a profoundly different ideological vision for remaking the world. ⁵ This article disturbs such broad categorizations in light of evidence that shows African individuals and regimes engaging with and attempting to take leadership of the international human rights movement from the 1970s onwards. It also demonstrates how the post-colonial world was deeply intricate, including actors with differing goals, ideologies, and interests. This meant the ideals and objectives of Global South actors sometimes departed from the prevailing international human rights agenda, while at other times there was substantial ground for overlap and synthesis. Those from the Global South, more than just sporadic contributors, could take the initiative in striving to expand the human rights cause in innovative ways that western actors had neither considered nor dared to before. ⁶ Indeed, as this case shows, The Gambia appeared more committed to the cause of human rights than fellow Commonwealth members in the West.

This article makes two central claims on why The Gambia campaigned for a CHRC and why the project failed. The findings are drawn from archives in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom (UK), including the Commonwealth Secretariat at Marlborough House, as well as Gambian memoirs, speeches, and scholarship. Firstly, human rights were a key pillar of The Gambia’s foreign policy. ⁷ President Dawda Jawara’s administration, behind a rhetoric of idealism, used the country’s strong human rights record as a means for locating aid, recognition, and legitimacy in the global arena. A commitment to human rights, for a geopolitically and economically vulnerable state, was more of a survival plan than a utopian agenda. The Gambia, notwithstanding its apparently sincere call for action, never missed an opportunity to broadcast how human rights were a way of life in the country. The timing of The Gambia’s lobbying in the late 1970s, coinciding with the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter in 1977 and the efflorescence of human rights campaigns in the West, indicates a deliberate effort to win favour among international bodies, wealthy states, and human rights networks. Ingeniously, with or without the CHRC being established, The Gambia succeeded in establishing its image as the voice for human rights in the Commonwealth.

Secondly, the ‘Old Commonwealth’ powers conspired to ‘kill’ The Gambia’s proposal. This was a significant factor in the inability of the Commonwealth to establish an effective mechanism for human rights promotion and protection. The UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, to differing degrees at different moments, coordinated in the lead-up to Commonwealth meetings and working groups to weaken and defeat The Gambia’s initiative. They manipulated discussion during key drafting stages, and remained silent or ‘neutral’ when The Gambia required voices in support. These strategies were deployed while deflecting blame and counting on many ‘New Commonwealth’ governments in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and the Pacific to play the role of antagonist. None of this is to excuse instances of non-western resistance to the CHRC, but to point out that views from the New Commonwealth were mixed and, in many quarters, undecided. This left the standpoint of the Old Commonwealth, the organization’s most materially and diplomatically resourceful members, to be decisive in uniting to thwart the CHRC. ⁸ The paranoid reactions of bureaucrats and advisors in the Old Commonwealth reveals much about the limits and contradictions of western leadership in human rights. The Old Commonwealth feared the Gambian proposal may threaten their sovereignty and expose their own abuses.

Yet, as this article contends overall, the CHRC threatened so much more than state sovereignty. It threatened assumptions about the West as a force for human rights, the Commonwealth’s credibility as an organization of principles, and the Third World’s antipathy to human rights. If successful, The Gambia’s CHRC would have not only disrupted these reputations and categories, it would have shattered beliefs about the human rights movement that were convenient for western powers. Such narratives, from the 1970s onwards, could entrench western dominance of the human rights movement and exclude other actors from positions of international influence. This benefited western interests and ideologies of liberal-democratic rights and individual freedoms. If allowing, for instance, post-colonial governments to pry further into the human rights record of the UK, or adopting a Commonwealth convention on socio-economic rights, was the price to pay for a CHRC, members from the Global North would not allow it. For these reasons, guided by a politics of perception and the danger of ceding some control over the international human rights framework, the Old Commonwealth powers surreptitiously killed off the CHRC. It is just as important to explain why some human rights movements succeeded as they emerged out of the 1970s and others did not.

The Gambia is geographically mainland Africa’s smallest country. It is situated in West Africa on a thin strip of land along The Gambia River and, apart from its short Atlantic coastline, is enveloped by its larger neighbour, Senegal. The British occupied much of the territory of modern-day The Gambia under the 1889 Anglo-French Convention, soon dividing it between a Crown Colony based in Bathurst (now Banjul) and a Protectorate in the hinterland. The People’s Progressive Party, led from 1959 by Dawda Jawara, won elections in 1962 and led the country to independence on 18 February 1965. A government census in 1983 recorded the population at 687,817, capturing the state’s vast ethnic diversity, including the Mandinka, Fula/Tukulor, Wolof, Jola, and Serahuli. At least 85% of the population identified as Muslim, alongside a small and influential Christian minority. ⁹ Jawara courted groups outside of his party’s rural heartland and his own Mandinka ethnic base. This weakened fellow Mandinka rivals, while Jawara’s connections with high levels in the bureaucracy further consolidated his personal power in a form of ‘neopatrimonialism’. ¹⁰ Jawara’s government inherited an underdeveloped economy dependent on external trade and groundnuts as the single cash crop. American diplomats in the late 1970s described The Gambia as severely drought-stricken and in the bracket of ‘least developed country’ status. ¹¹

Such physical and economic vulnerabilities led many observers to doubt the viability of The Gambia as an independent state. British administrators, as well as a 1963-4 United Nations (UN) expert mission, favoured incorporation with Senegal, a former French colony. ¹² Jawara overcame such pressures and demanded constitutional change toward full independence separate from Senegal. Banjul-Dakar relations were reformulated in the aftermath of a coup attempt in The Gambia by extreme Leftist groups and Field Force paramilitary police in mid-1981. Jawara requested the intervention of Senegalese troops to defeat the coup, exposing Banjul’s reliance on Senegal for security. ¹³ The two countries formed on 1 February 1982 the Senegambia Confederation, which included a Confederal army. The confederation failed to realise its aims of economic and monetary integration, while achieving little in other areas. It fell apart by September 1989, at a time of increasing tensions, after Dakar abruptly withdrew its troops from The Gambia and accused Banjul of frustrating attempts to forge a closer interstate union. Jawara, aware the project lacked public support, wanted to maintain The Gambia’s sovereignty and was suspicious of Senegal’s ambitions for a unitary state. ¹⁴

The Gambia, despite the coup attempt, had a reputation for political stability, democratic multi-party rule, and the rule of law. The US State Department’s 1978 human rights report applauded The Gambia’s outstanding record on political and civil rights. ¹⁵ Banjul pursued human rights causes in the UN, the Commonwealth, and the Organization of African Unity (OAU). Jawara advocated for the indivisibility between socio-economic and liberal-democratic freedoms, and denounced justifications used throughout Africa for a one-party state on the basis of development or security needs. ¹⁶ His government played an instrumental role in the creation of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), also known as the Banjul Charter. The OAU, by 1979, responded to calls in international forums and civil society for a regional mechanism to address major human rights violations. Banjul hosted two OAU Ministers of Justice meetings in 1980 and 1981 to consider and approve a draft of the ACHPR, before its adoption at an OAU Heads of State meeting in Nairobi on 28 June 1981. The ACHPR permitted states to limit rights under domestic laws, but it was a pioneering document in advancing an African conceptualisation of human rights, pairing rights with duties, and placing individual rights within the context of the community. ¹⁷ Banjul used the African and Commonwealth initiatives as examples of its human rights idealism. Its delegates, in April 1984, drew the UN Human Rights Committee’s attention to the CHRC campaign as evidence of The Gambia’s strong stand for human rights. ¹⁸

The Gambia’s human rights credentials helped it to build an attractive external image, which was vital for attaining much needed donor support. Foreign aid made up 71% of the government’s development budget between 1975-80 and over 85% from 1981-90, notably from western sources such as the UK, the US, West Germany, and the European Economic Community. The Gambia was one of Africa’s highest destinations for foreign assistance per capita between 1975–85. ¹⁹ This support, beyond the economic reward, offered international validation for the Jawara administration and recognition of The Gambia as a viable state – one whose continued, autonomous existence was cherished by external admirers. Banjul, therefore, pursued the CHRC because of Jawara’s leadership on human rights, as well as the strategic incentives for a geopolitically vulnerable and aid-dependent state to enhance its moral authority on the international stage.

The Gambia’s move to a republic was essential in gaining such prestige. Jawara, in April 1970, won a necessary two-third majority in a referendum vote for The Gambia to become a republic within the Commonwealth. He saw this further constitutional step as necessary to help Banjul negotiate on equal terms with Dakar. Jawara proclaimed to be a believer in the Commonwealth’s usefulness as a mini-UN, more informal in association and connected by a common language. The Gambia, as an Anglophone state surrounded by larger Francophone countries in West Africa, found reassurance in the Commonwealth by building bridges with potential aid donors and other former British dependencies. ²⁰ The Gambia’s entry into the Commonwealth, marked by Jawara’s attendance at the June 1965 Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference in London, occurred at a turbulent time. It was four years after South Africa left the Commonwealth and just months before Rhodesia declared a Unilateral Declaration of Independence. The Commonwealth underwent internal strains on the issue of racial discrimination and apartheid in southern Africa. The UK faced pressure from newly independent members to take a harder line against Rhodesia, including the use of force, and South Africa, such as banning arms sales and applying economic sanctions. ²¹

1965 was also the year the Commonwealth Secretariat was established, mostly upon the urging of Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, to act as a ‘clearing house’ for technical cooperation and information sharing. Post-colonial governments used the organization to address important issues for the Global South, including development, global inequality, and the eradication of colonial and white minority rule. ²² By 1977, Jawara hoped for the Secretariat to perform another function. He spoke out in March against Uganda, a fellow Commonwealth member, after reading reports of abuses. ²³ The June 1977 CHOGM in London, at the urging of Secretary-General Shridath Ramphal, took an unprecedented move in condemning Idi Amin’s regime. It also produced the Gleneagles Agreement, which endorsed the sporting boycott of apartheid South Africa. ²⁴ Jawara, however, wanted more substantive action, announcing in a closed CHOGM session his CHRC proposal. The Gambia, as one of the smallest members, could use the Commonwealth’s parity of membership to take a leadership role and initiate an international project that went beyond the African continent.

The Gambia’s idea was not entirely original as Canada contemplated their own CHRC bid almost 10 years earlier. The Legal Division of Canada’s Department of External Affairs suggested the government could propose a new international mechanism at the April-May 1968 International Conference on Human Rights in Tehran. An intra-Commonwealth human rights regime, Canadian legal advisors contended, would benefit from its members’ common legal and judicial systems, and be modelled on the European Human Rights Commission and Court. ²⁵ Fellow External Affairs analysts were unconvinced. The Francophone division warned the initiative could be humiliating and self-defeating while Ottawa was considering a white paper for a constitutional bill of rights. ²⁶ The Commonwealth was too informal in structure and ‘multi-racial’, the Commonwealth and Coordination Divisions commented, to articulate clear standards of behaviour. Human rights problems were prevalent among governments struggling with state-building and internal conflict. This left Canadian bureaucrats with a bleak conclusion: the more necessary a human rights mechanism appeared, the less likely members would permit it. Some may rather leave the Commonwealth than sign up to a CHRC. ²⁷

The Tehran Conference saw not so much the affirmation of universal human rights, but the exaltation of the state and authoritarian development models among many Global South participants. ²⁸ The Legal Division insisted the CHRC was realistic if approached in a gradualist fashion, with a step-by-step process toward a covenant, commission, and court, as well as opt-in-opt-out options for states. ²⁹ The CHRC itself was just one stage in setting up regional systems, even if somewhat overlapping, toward a worldwide architecture for protecting human rights. External Affairs, postponing the proposal until the January 1969 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference in London, consulted with fellow Old Commonwealth members. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) supported the idea in principle, adding their own advice on the drafting process, options for different mechanisms, and strategies for successful implementation. British officials recommended the endeavour may succeed if a ‘non-white member’ interested in international human rights law, like Jamaica, could sponsor it. The FCO, not without some doubt, preferred to see the Commonwealth mechanism be more stringent than those of the UN. ³⁰

Australia and New Zealand, however, rebuffed any move for a CHRC. Canberra applied a racialist lens, asserting Asian and African countries were less committed to the rule of law and political freedom. ‘Irresponsible’ African governments, according to Australian stereotyping, ‘played fast and loose with their constitutions and civil liberties’. Canberra worried about a Commonwealth court looking into how Australia treated its indigenous population and administration of the UN Trust Territory of Papua and New Guinea. ³¹ New Zealand similarly expressed that the CHRC was a non-starter. Wellington did not trust the New Commonwealth on human rights, anticipating such governments would use their majority to diminish scrutiny over their own records and focus ‘on issues where they think that blacks are being pushed around by the whites’. ³² Canberra and Wellington disapproved of the CHRC, the Canadians judged, because of their treatment of non-white populations and how additional exposure on this issue could impair relations with partners in Asia. The Canadians were discouraged from pursuing the motion further, lamenting that if the Commonwealth could not establish an efficient system the UN’s chances were ‘beyond hope’. ³³ These debates reveal the opportunities some in the Old Commonwealth saw to develop a Commonwealth human rights programme, especially when the proposals came from a fellow western government, as well as the vulnerabilities perceived by many in the settler colonial states. The Gambia’s endeavour was more ground-breaking in having the political courage, confronting tougher resistance, to officially propose a CHRC.

The Commonwealth continued to be a viable option for hosting a new rights regime in the late 1970s, at a time when the success or realisation of inter-state devices was uncertain outside of Western Europe. The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was adopted in 1950, the UN Human Rights Committee met for the first time in 1977, and the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights entered into force in 1978. Yet, the UN’s work was often impeded by Cold War antagonism, many Latin American states systematically violated human rights, Africa’s progress towards a regional mechanism was still fledgling, and Asia and the Pacific would remain without a human rights system. ³⁴ The Gambia’s memorandum, as presented by Saho in August 1977 in Winnipeg, detailed why a CHRC was necessary and how it could work. It began by recalling The Declaration of Commonwealth Principles at the 1971 CHOGM in Singapore. The Declaration, initiated by Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere and Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda, aimed at resolving disputes over western cooperation with the apartheid regime. It discouraged external assistance to white minority regimes, and upheld national self-determination and non-racialism.

The Gambian memorandum cited the Singapore Declaration’s proclamations on individual rights, democratic practices, and ‘human dignity and equality’. It also referred to the 1977 London meeting’s affirmation of the Commonwealth’s commitment to protecting human rights. ³⁵ The CHRC would merely fulfil the organization’s self-appointed responsibilities. The Gambia was a natural champion of this endeavour, the memorandum posed, because human rights were engrained in its constitution, democratic elections, and policy-making. If The Gambia was to realize its vision of ‘a better world’, it required international cooperation with those who shared its values and goals. Banjul’s memorandum was premised on the understanding that ‘[a]d hoc condemnation is not enough’. Simply criticising Uganda for human rights violations, for example, could only have trivial outcomes without follow-up action. ³⁶

The Gambia’s proposal expanded beyond liberal-democratic freedoms by upholding the rights of the poor through a fairer distribution of wealth in the face of domestic inequality and corruption. It made clear, however, that political and civil rights would be prioritized, highlighting protections against state murder, torture, and arbitrary detention. The Gambia put forward its own model, anticipating it could be a useful starting point for an expert working group. The CHRC was partly inspired by the European Commission of Human Rights in its conciliatory and adjudicatory functions. The Gambia outlined some basic tasks for the CHRC, such as encouraging adherence to international human rights law; coordinating with activists and non-governmental organizations (NGOs); condemning colonial and white minority rule; and advancing women’s rights. The memorandum also equipped the CHRC with a right to investigate and make reports, aspiring to maintain a difficult balance between respecting state sovereignty and protecting human rights. The CHRC would approach problems in a spirit of flexibility and compromise, without provoking controversy or judging states, while still having some ability to intervene in internal affairs to be effective. ³⁷

The FCO, under Secretary of State David Owen, was cautiously receptive to the Gambian proposals. Its UN Department surmised that a human rights mechanism could strengthen the Commonwealth if it worked, but equally damage it if it was powerless. African countries should lead the initiative, the FCO counselled, otherwise aggressive support from the UK could bring charges of neo-colonialism and harm the CHRC’s prospects. The Gambia’s human rights ideals were similar to the UK’s, the UN Department supposed, and the lack of communist interference in the Commonwealth could favour the UK’s ideological preferences. For instance, the CHRC may dedicate itself to preserving individual rights against the state, leaving socio-economic rights to be aspirational goals. Owen welcomed The Gambia’s call for action and advocated for his government to support it. ³⁸

Others in the UK government, by contrast, found reasons to resist. Legal officers thought the proposed CHRC would ‘overlap’ in jurisdiction with the ECHR and the UN Covenants. The FCO’s Commonwealth Coordination Department deemed the Commonwealth was too precious to put at risk of unnecessary strain. ³⁹ More frightfully, the Lord Chancellor’s Office dreaded embarrassment over the UK’s domestic record, following at least two recent complaints in international forums. Firstly, Ireland alleged the UK breached the ECHR during its counterinsurgency operations in Northern Ireland. Secondly, India criticised the UK in the UN Commission on Human Rights in Geneva after news reports exposed the Home Office for abuses committed by immigration officers. Many South Asian migrant women were subjected to humiliating physical examinations when applying to gain entry to the UK. ⁴⁰ Ministers were apprehensive about the prospect of a CHRC interfering with the UK’s independence and domestic policymaking. ⁴¹ Such criticisms persuaded the FCO to decline giving support for The Gambian memorandum, even in principle. It was better, the government concluded, ‘to let this particular sleeping dog lie’. ⁴²

Britain was not alone in its hesitation. Canberra dismissed the idea, seeing an ECHR-style system as too complex and unpredictable for the Commonwealth. Malcolm Fraser’s government still hoped Australia would be perceived as taking the initiative on human rights internationally at the August 1979 CHOGM in Lusaka. The Department of Foreign Affairs’ alternative was a Commonwealth ‘human rights desk’ to collect human rights publications and host seminars. ⁴³ This would have been a frivolous substitute for the CHRC, being of only marginal interest to academics. Wellington identified with the UK’s hope that The Gambia’s proposals ‘can be allowed to quietly die’. New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed to the British High Commission its anxiety that the CHRC would involve governments complaining about the records of fellow members. ⁴⁴ This was a self-evident point, but one that implied Wellington could not tolerate any new international human rights system where New Zealand could be a possible target.

Canada’s position was far removed from its prior CHRC initiative. Ron Basford, Canada’s Chairman of the 1977 Winnipeg Meeting, privately instructed Saho not to submit the Gambian memorandum for discussion among law ministers. Instead, Basford invited delegates to consult their governments and forward their views to the Secretary-General, thereby taking the CHRC off the agenda. ⁴⁵ Ottawa, in internal papers and talks with the British High Commission, was cynical of the international human rights project, witnessing the politicized and counterproductive handling of human rights problems at the UN. The Canadians reproduced the same critiques they encountered in 1968, seeing the CHRC as a ‘duplicate’ of existing international mechanisms and the Commonwealth as too informal to establish rules. ⁴⁶ This reveals not so much a change in foreign policy under Pierre Trudeau, Prime Minister from 1968-84, but the limits and inconsistency of Canada’s human rights idealism during these years. ⁴⁷

The archival records from the Old Commonwealth feature candid exchanges on their mutual apprehensions, interests, and strategies. Discreetly, they brainstormed weaker alternatives, shared intelligence on who did or did not support the endeavour, and rallied to give the CHRC the least possible chance at life.

The Commonwealth Secretariat was also uneasy about installing a CHRC. In mid-1978, an informant for the UK in Marlborough House told an FCO official the Secretariat disliked The Gambia’s proposals and hoped they would be forgotten. ⁴⁸ Secretariat staff concluded in an internal paper the Gambian initiative was ‘doomed to failure’. Ramphal welcomed Fraser’s proposed human rights desk as a fallback option to demonstrate the Commonwealth cared about human rights. ⁴⁹ Elsewhere in Africa, Kaunda and Nyerere questioned the Commonwealth’s capacity to deal with such issues, compared to the OAU. Nonetheless, Jawara was determined to revive the CHRC proposal at the 1979 Lusaka CHOGM and Kaunda, as host, wanted him to get a fair hearing. ⁵⁰

The Gambian President spoke in glowing terms about the Commonwealth while resubmitting his CHRC proposal in Lusaka. ‘The ideals, principles and values held by the Commonwealth were so high,’ Jawara postulated, that it ‘should be in the very vanguard of the fight’ for individual human rights. To be at the ‘real vanguard’, the Commonwealth needed an instrument to safeguard these principles and supervise their adherence among members. ⁵¹ Heads of government would have to do more than articulate another proclamation of values, as shown again in the Lusaka Declaration on Racism and Racial Prejudice. Jawara succeeded in inserting a section in the conference communique urging states to forward their views on the CHRC to Marlborough House and asking the Secretary-General to appoint a Working Party to study how the new institution could operate. ⁵²

The Gambia’s initiative, in official transcripts, was endorsed in varying degrees by delegates from Zambia, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Kenya, and Barbados. Godfrey Binaisa, President of Uganda after Amin’s recent overthrow, went as far as calling for a Commonwealth Human Rights Court. ⁵³ No member state was willing to speak out against the CHRC on record, much to the alarm of western delegates who reported some angst behind the scenes. ⁵⁴ The Lusaka outcome was a compromise, retreating from The Gambia’s draft resolution to immediately appoint a 10-person CHRC and postponing talks on the issue until the next Law Ministers Meeting in Barbados the following year. ⁵⁵ However, the communique enabled the Secretariat to invite leading experts from around the Commonwealth to design a new apparatus for protecting human rights. The door was open for the Commonwealth, if it desired, to have a meaningful role in the international evolution of human rights.

The Old Commonwealth saw the obligations entailed in the communique as threatening their interests and expectations of the Commonwealth. The UK, now under the conservative administration of Margaret Thatcher, became more unfavourable to The Gambia’s CHRC. FCO officials were guided by the Thatcher government’s aversion to external human rights mechanisms and ‘zero growth’ policy on contributions to international organizations. ‘What should we be saying or doing,’ the FCO brainstormed, ‘which might have the best chance of ensuring an early or lingering death for the proposal?’ ⁵⁶ Their murderous intent brought risks, advised Eric N. Smith, the British High Commissioner in Banjul. If the UK was to be a killer, the UK should not be identified as a prime suspect. The Gambia was a moderate and cooperative partner in Africa, Smith stressed, and Jawara’s international credibility was on the line. Ebou Taal, a Gambian diplomat, informed Smith Banjul was already displeased with the UK’s lack of support. ⁵⁷ Antony Acland, the FCO’s Deputy Under-Secretary, responded delicately to Ramphal’s call for written responses. He replied that the UK was uncommitted, citing apparent concerns to do with overlapping jurisdiction. ⁵⁸

Australia was similarly uncomfortable with presenting an openly hostile response. Canberra, to avoid being stuck with ‘some half-baked semi-Gambian proposal’, urged the Commonwealth Secretariat to have the Working Party survey other options, like a human rights desk. This would offer an escape route, helping The Gambia and the Commonwealth alike to save face. ⁵⁹ New Zealand was equally disenchanted post-Lusaka. Robert Muldoon, the Prime Minister, preferred not to establish a Working Party at all, and Foreign Affairs continued to see the CHRC as impractical. ⁶⁰ Ottawa also saw the CHRC as unrealistic. The Canadians, instead, favoured an expert body on human rights that would investigate and write confidential reports upon the request of member states or the Secretary-General, without publicly shaming governments. Unlike other Old Commonwealth powers, the Canadians would have rather seen the Gambian CHRC succeed than have no action at all. ⁶¹ Regardless, it is clear Canada was unprepared to be as ambitious as The Gambia or as public in advocating for a Commonwealth human rights body.

The response of the New Commonwealth was little more encouraging. Apart from the UK, just six governments wrote to the Secretary-General. Only Cyprus and Grenada, two countries with turbulent recent histories, wrote to submit their official support. Malawi, Fiji, and the Solomon Islands opposed the CHRC initiative citing its ostensible duplication of existing international mechanisms. ⁶² The silence of other member states may have relayed its own message on their indifference toward the project. The Indian High Commission in London informally told Marlborough House it opposed setting up a Working Party. Charles Njonjo, Kenya’s Attorney General, wrote to the Secretariat to indicate he preferred the UN to deal with human rights instead. ⁶³ Furthermore, New Zealand diplomats reported signs of hesitation in Singapore, Malaysia, Samoa, and Tanzania. ⁶⁴ Niall MacDermot, Secretary-General of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), wrote to Marlborough House to request a delay in establishing the Working Party. Ironically, he feared it would interfere with drafting of what would become the Banjul Charter. ⁶⁵ These underwhelming responses went far to rule out the realization of The Gambia’s CHRC in full. There was still, however, much room for the Working Party to submit a novel and worthwhile compromise.

The nine-member Working Party, meeting from 14-18 April 1980 at Marlborough House, featured a diverse line-up of legal specialists and diplomats (Figure 1). Ramphal invited as Chair Yvon Beaulne, Canada’s representative on the UN Human Rights Commission; Sir Ian Sinclair QC, an FCO legal advisor; and Alhaji Saho from The Gambia. They were joined by other experts from Dominica, Ghana, Malaysia, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, and Tanzania. ⁶⁶ The Commonwealth Secretariat intended for these men to serve as individuals, not as government representatives. Some of the invitees had other plans. FCO officials strategized for the UK to take part in the Working Party ‘with a view to killing the Gambian proposal’ from within or, in less violent language, to help produce a ‘sensible report’. ⁶⁷ Ottawa gave instructions to Beaulne, who already had criticisms about The Gambia’s memorandum, to guide the Working Party towards alternative mechanisms. ⁶⁸ The meetings were driven by various forms of legalist thinking, human rights activism, and political self-interest.

Minutes from the Working Party show Beaulne and Sinclair steering much of the discussion to suit their government’s agendas. They favoured an instrument based on informality, conciliation, and consultation, rather than rigidity and coercion. Sinclair made a pivotal distinction between instruments for human rights promotion and protection, in which the latter category required great caution. He suggested the investigative arm should only look into ‘massive’ human rights violations and systemic abuse. This threshold was too high, Saho protested, as larger crises generally started with abuses at the individual level. Sinclair tried to push his influence further, recommending an ad hoc body, rather than a continuously operating mechanism in the Commonwealth Secretariat. Beaulne intervened to shift discussion toward Ottawa’s idea for an established expert group. Saho, in a major concession, conceded all work conducted by the human rights body must have the consent of the government under examination. He hoped this measure would convince states their sovereignty would be left intact. Saho was overpowered during much of the discussion, as Secretariat staff reported him looking unapprovingly at colleagues. ⁶⁹

The Working Party concluded the meeting with an Interim Report, open to government responses before follow-up talks in 1981. The Interim Report listed functions for a special unit to encourage and assist member states to meet their international human rights obligations, and an advisory committee for human rights protection. The advisory committee would be restricted to cases depicting ‘a consistent pattern of gross and reliably attested violations’. This wording was adapted from a UN mechanism, Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) resolution 1503, adopted on 27 May 1970. The advisory committee would accept submissions from Commonwealth member states, individuals from countries alleged to have committed human rights violations, and NGOs. It would only assess a situation with the approval, no matter how unlikely, of governments accused of serious violations. The advisory committee would work quietly, submitting confidential reports to heads of government, without embarrassing states. It would not examine cases already under investigation by other international bodies, thereby preventing possible issues to do with overlapping jurisdiction. ⁷⁰ The Working Party was extremely friendly to state sovereignty. A question remained over whether even the Interim Report’s modest set of recommendations would be approved by member states.

Much of the Old Commonwealth, relieved by the death of The Gambia’s CHRC, was not prepared to give life to the Interim Report. The UK government was divided over whether the recommendations were suitably innocuous and ineffective, or still too much of a threat to British sovereignty and policymaking. ⁷¹ The Home Office imagined the advisory committee would be ‘misused’ for political reasons to attack the UK’s border control. The special unit was also dangerous for its promotion of women’s rights. The Home Office regretted how a pronouncement for uplifting the status of women would conflict with its practice of degrading South Asian migrant women. ⁷² Such paranoia reveals, not so much that the special unit and advisory committee could be effective mechanisms, but that even the smallest possibility of vulnerability was intolerable. The official British response to the Interim Report struck a tone of ‘unhelpful enthusiasm’, exhibiting nominal interest and only a minor suggestion for amending the report. ⁷³ The UK preferred another quiet death.

Fellow Old Commonwealth members had varied responses to the Interim Report. Australia welcomed the proposals for a special unit, seeing commonalities with its own human rights desk idea, but dismissed the advisory committee. If a government under examination was pressured or obliged to cooperate, according to the Australian government, this would disrupt the Commonwealth’s informal nature. ⁷⁴ New Zealand saw the Interim Report’s recommendations as mild and unobtrusive, although Wellington did not send a response or declare any approval to the Secretary-General. ⁷⁵ Canada was more supportive and constructive, offering suggestions for how the advisory committee could work. However, like the UK and Australia, Ottawa qualified its comments on the basis that any new mechanism must be resourced through the Commonwealth’s existing budget. ⁷⁶ No Commonwealth human rights mechanism could function adequately without extra funding, particularly by the richest member states.

Saho was disappointed The Gambia’s original CHRC proposal was rejected during the Working Party talks. He remained optimistic the special unit and advisory committee could evolve into a more effective institution. ⁷⁷ To reach this starting point, much would depend on the response of the New Commonwealth. The first indications at the November 1980 Commonwealth Senior Officials Meeting in Nicosia, Cyprus, were not only disheartening, they raised further complications. W.M.P.B. Menikdiwela, Secretary to the Sri Lankan President, conceived a politically balanced advisory committee would help correct Amnesty International’s alleged bias against ‘Third World’ countries and lack of scrutiny toward the ‘First World’. ⁷⁸ This would have reinforced some of the UK’s suspicions about being targeted for human rights criticism. Nevertheless, the more human rights appeared to be a political battleground than a moral question, the less likely a consensus would be reached to implement the Working Party’s proposals.

The relationship between human rights and political economy was a topic fraught with ideological contestation. Dr Cedric H. Grant, Guyana’s High Commissioner in London, spoke against the legalistic make-up and focus of the Working Party. He disagreed with the emphasis on individual rights under the rule of law, wishing for greater mention of socio-economic rights, less privileging of private property rights, and renewed attention toward global economic injustice. India’s representatives concurred, conceptualising a looser definition of human rights beyond ‘legal’ terms. Alongside Malaysia’s and Grenada’s delegates, India saw a problem of duplicating existing international instruments. Omar A. Secka, a Gambian diplomat, pleaded with fellow attendees to give the Interim Report a chance before discarding it. He hoped Commonwealth members would contemplate how the proposals could revitalize the human rights movement and offer better machinery than those already available. Secka insisted the economic realm should be excluded from consideration, hoping to avert a perilously divisive debate. ‘We were able to sit through these exchanges,’ described R.A.R. Barltrop, an FCO official, ‘with arms folded, trying to avoid smiles of satisfaction at the tenor of discussion’. ⁷⁹ The UK was pleased to see the Interim Report’s recommendations on death row without being labelled executioner.

The New Commonwealth responded with mixed views to the Working Party. While Mauritius and Seychelles gave full support, letters from India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and the newly independent Zimbabwe recorded their opposition. ⁸⁰ Marlborough House was also wary of the Interim Report. The Commonwealth’s self-preservation was most important, for the Secretariat, and it could not afford any possible tensions brought by the advisory committee. Commonwealth bureaucrats thereby advised the Working Party to leave the issue of protection to the biannual CHOGMs. The Secretariat favoured the special unit, but acknowledged it would be infeasible without more funding. ⁸¹

The Working Party met again from 21-28 April 1981, producing a final report for submission to the Melbourne CHOGM in September-October. Several members of the Working Party found hope in the progress of the ACHPR, which was two months away from being adopted. The Working Party opted for even greater concessions on respecting state sovereignty. The Final Report was sensitive to the mood of economic austerity among member states, reassuring governments the special unit would be initiated on a tight budget and expanded on a gradualist basis. It recovered the Gambian memorandum’s explicit mention of socio-economic rights, trying to rectify for developing countries the Interim Report’s bias towards political and civil rights. The Working Party’s biggest compromise was on the advisory committee, making the body function on an ad hoc rather than a periodic basis. The Final Report was defensive, reemphasising how the advisory committee would not duplicate existing bodies, avoid overlapping jurisdiction, exclude complaints of individual maltreatment, and remain confidential in its work. ⁸² The Gambia’s original memorandum was barely recognisable in the Final Report.

The Old Commonwealth maintained their distance from the Working Party’s recommendations. The FCO softened its internal stance toward the Final Report as officials, appreciating Sinclair’s influence, recommended giving official government support, while disputing the inclusion of economic and social rights. Yet, Home Office and Northern Ireland Office nervousness continued to be a strong counterbalance. ⁸³ Smith best encapsulated the UK’s ongoing position in talks with A. G. Dingle, Australia’s High Commissioner to Ghana. The British would be seen to go along with whatever the Working Party devised, Smith illustrated, but its proposals would be ‘killed with kindness’. ⁸⁴

Australia’s standpoint was more complicated by its role as CHOGM host and the presence of some domestic pressure. Amnesty International’s Australian section demanded leadership from Canberra on building effective remedies for human rights within the Commonwealth. Dick Oosting, Amnesty International’s Deputy Secretary-General, met with Fraser, who promised Australia would have a ‘prominent role’ in a Commonwealth initiative for human rights. ⁸⁵ However, the Fraser government intended to have no actual leadership on the issue at CHOGM. Its strategy was to allow ‘non-western Commonwealth countries’ to take charge of the discussion on the Final Report. ⁸⁶ Wellington faced pressure of a different kind. African countries criticized New Zealand for hosting a South African rugby tour in breach of the Gleneagles agreement. The Muldoon government, in a defensive position on human rights, saw no merit in the Final Report. ⁸⁷ Ottawa was little more courageous, refusing to lead and preparing to wait for other states to find a ‘consensus’ first. ⁸⁸ The strategy for all four powers was not so much to kill the Final Report with kindness, but to let others kill it while western statesmen could appear kind.

Australian and New Zealand diplomats suspected The Gambia would be less interested in the CHRC given the comparative success of the ACHPR. ⁸⁹ They were proven wrong as Saho, despite the Working Party’s innumerable compromises, told Dingle he fully supported the Final Report. This was the very least the Commonwealth could do, Saho remarked, as ‘anything less would be ridiculous’. Saho was unimpressed by arguments over the need for frugality in the Secretariat, calling such claims a ‘smoke screen’ for other worries about state sovereignty. ⁹⁰ Jawara was unable to attend the Melbourne summit as he coped with the aftermath of the July coup attempt. This meant, unlike at Lusaka, critics could speak more openly without rudely offending Jawara in person.

For those concerned with the cause of advancing human rights in the Commonwealth, Melbourne was a disaster. Minutes from the Committee of the Whole offer a damning reflection of the dearth of leadership, not least from the West. Voices from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean repeated familiar critiques over infringing sovereignty, duplicating the UN’s work, and defining human rights. They escaped any in-depth engagement with the Working Party’s recommendations. Opponents of the Final Report included Bangladesh, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Malaysia, India, and Singapore. Previous supporters like Uganda, Grenada, Seychelles, and Cyprus expressed reservations to varying degrees. Several representatives advocated for the Final Report to be sent to the next Law Ministers Meeting, an ideal setting for a quiet death. The Gambia pleaded against this fatal manoeuvre, pointing out how the Final Report had ‘watered down’ their original proposals and was ‘the minimum that should be adopted’. Canada proved to be timid at this critical stage, refusing to commit either for or against the recommendations. ⁹¹

Australia turned the focus of the meeting to consider the special unit separately, as India, Botswana, Uganda, and Grenada all showed sympathy for the promotional aspect of the Final Report. The Gambia, with little left to rescue, called on the group to recommend the special unit alone. The FCO recorded that the UK’s representatives sat back to watch this ‘happy situation’ unfold. The British, speaking up only after non-western delegates stated their opposition, adopted a spirited tone. UK officials maintained a pretence of enthusiasm, graciously thanking The Gambia for their initiative and welcoming the special unit. ⁹² The Melbourne CHOGM communique endorsed the special unit subject to agreement on its funding and tasked law ministers with discussing the advisory committee further. ⁹³ The Commonwealth, faced with the option of taking the slightest of actions on human rights, opted once again to pose its values in the form of a non-committal statement. The Melbourne Declaration noted the right of all to live with human dignity and a world with less economic inequality. ⁹⁴ As the original Gambian memorandum noted, for the Commonwealth to be actively part of the international human rights movement, words were not enough.

The Gambia did not establish a CHRC or any effective mechanism in the Commonwealth, but it was successful in spreading and authenticating its international image on human rights. This was confirmed in the performance of Fafa M’bai, who replaced Saho as Attorney General, at the February 1983 Colombo Law Ministers Meeting. ‘The people of The Gambia strongly believed that the protection and promotion of human rights’, M’bai proclaimed, ‘was as much if not more their business as it was any international group of states’. ⁹⁵ The Gambia, unlike the Commonwealth, backed up its statements on human rights with actions, giving these words power and meaning. To the extent the Commonwealth was genuinely useful as a forum for personal interactions and resolving mutual problems between member states, The Gambia triumphed. ⁹⁶ The CHRC endeavour elevated Jawara’s prestige, raising the visibility and perceived importance of one of the Commonwealth’s smallest and weakest members. The Gambia’s status as the sole guardian of human rights in the Commonwealth could not be challenged given its singular vision, consistency, and persistence.

Jawara, in October 1991, made another pitch for the Commonwealth to explore new international human rights machinery at a speech in London. ⁹⁷ Less than three years later, the President was ousted in a military coup. ⁹⁸ The country’s reputation was ruined. The Gambia, under the corrupt and oppressive rule of Yahya Jammeh from 1994–2017, became a place known for appalling human rights abuses. Jammeh withdrew The Gambia from the Commonwealth in 2013 due to criticism from the UK. Yet, the Commonwealth meekly tolerated Jammeh’s democratic façade and record of skewed elections, political intimidation, state torture, and extrajudicial killings. ⁹⁹ It is mournful to ponder if a CHRC could have had some positive outcome for the Gambian people, even as the mechanism was only ever envisaged for almost anywhere else.

This article raises questions about the utility of the Commonwealth as an organization capable of advancing human rights, a claim restated in the 1991 Harare Declaration and the 2012 Commonwealth Charter. The Commonwealth did not simply have an inattentive or passive role during the evolution of the human rights movement, but actively denied any proposal that could result in the organization taking substantive action. Its subsequent achievements were barely noticeable. The special unit (now the Human Rights Unit), authorized in 1983, is crippled with a lack of resources and staff; the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, introduced in 1995 to monitor human rights, is virtually unheard of; and, on the cusp of installing a ‘High Commissioner’ to promote and give effect to the Commonwealth Charter, the 2011 Perth CHOGM unceremoniously shot down the idea. ¹⁰⁰ The Commonwealth had at least some productive role in helping to manage the transitions to African majority rule in Zimbabwe and South Africa. ¹⁰¹ Nonetheless, this article reaffirms Philip Murphy’s scepticism of the Commonwealth ‘myth’. The organization presents an illusion of being a force for good, built on shallow platitudes and incantations, without daring to demand the political compromises necessary to turn dreams of a better world into reality. ¹⁰² Yet, the Commonwealth is only what its member states wish it to be. Rather than blame the Commonwealth for the death of initiatives like the CHRC, this article has exposed the killers; principally, The UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.

What is needed is a rethinking of the use of reductionist categories by historical actors and historians alike. The Gambia’s CHRC is just one example of why scholars must be mindful not to label the Afro-Asian or post-colonial attitude to human rights when there is so much complexity and diversity within these enormous frames. The craftiness of western diplomats to use the perception of ‘Third World’ antagonism toward human rights to mask their own resistance should warn historians not to reproject narratives that were once convenient for powerful geopolitical interests – in other words, affixing western states with the badge of moral superiority and casting non-western states as the radical other. There is also a need to rethink what opposition to human rights looks like. It can have a kind face, with feigned encouragement obscuring hostility behind the scenes. Inaction could be just as debilitating for efforts to advance human rights as blatant attacks, and perhaps even more insidious if it means the real culprits escape criticism. Human rights historiography may be distorted because stories of success are much more visible and easier to locate than the failures. Optics mattered for historical actors and entities: the West could only be seen to lead and not oppose human rights projects; the Commonwealth stood for little if it could not signal its principles; and Global South countries, wittingly or unwittingly, were expected to live up to their caricatures as stubborn and divergent entities on human rights issues. The Gambia’s CHRC was so dangerous because it threatened to shatter all of these illusions and the power dynamics they entrenched in the international human rights movement.