The government of Ethiopia is the federal government of Ethiopia. It is structured in a framework of a federal parliamentary republic, whereby the prime minister is the head of government. Executive power is exercised by the government. The prime minister is chosen by the lower chamber of the Federal Parliamentary Assembly. Federal legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of parliament. The judiciary is more or less independent of the executive and the legislature. They are governed under the 1995 Constitution of Ethiopia. There is a bicameral parliament made of the 108-seat House of Federation and the 547-seat House of Peoples' Representatives. The House of Federation has members chosen by the regional councils to serve five-year terms. The House of Peoples' Representatives is elected by direct election, who in turn elect the president for a six-year term.
International human rights law (IHRL) is the body of international law designed to promote human rights on social, regional, and domestic levels. As a form of international law, international human rights law are primarily made up of treaties, agreements between sovereign states intended to have binding legal effect between the parties that have agreed to them; and customary international law. Other international human rights instruments, while not legally binding, contribute to the implementation, understanding and development of international human rights law and have been recognized as a source of political obligation.
The African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights is an international human rights instrument that is intended to promote and protect human rights and basic freedoms in the African continent.
The Eritrean–Ethiopian War, also known as the Badme War, was a major armed conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea that took place from May 1998 to June 2000. After Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia, relations were initially friendly. However, disagreements about where the newly created international border should be caused relations to deteriorate significantly, eventually leading to full scale war. According to a 2005 ruling by an international commission, Eritrea broke international law and triggered the war by invading Ethiopia. By 2000, Ethiopia held all of the disputed territory and had advanced into Eritrea. The war officially came to an end with the signing of the Algiers Agreement in 12 December 2000; however, the ensuing border conflict would continue on for nearly two decades.
The Southern Cameroons was the southern part of the British League of Nations mandate territory of the British Cameroons in West Africa. Since 1961, it has been part of the Republic of Cameroon, where it makes up the Northwest Region and Southwest Region. Since 1994, pressure groups in the territory claim there was no legal document in accordance to UNGA RES 1608(XV) paragraph 5, and are seeking to restore statehood and independence from the Republic. They renamed the British Southern Cameroons as Ambazonia.
The African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights, also known simply as the African Court, is an international court established by member states of the African Union (AU) to implement provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. Seated in Arusha, Tanzania, it is the judicial arm of the AU and one of three regional human rights courts.
Contributing to the establishment of human rights system in Africa are the United Nations, international law and the African Union which have positively influenced the betterment of the human rights situation in the continent. However, extensive human rights abuses still occur in many sections of the continent. Most of the violations can be attributed to political instability, racial discrimination, corruption, post-colonialism, economic scarcity, ignorance, illness, religious bigotry, debt and bad financial management, monopoly of power, lack/absence of judicial and press autonomy, and border conflicts. Many of the provisions contained in regional, national, continental, and global agreements remained unaccomplished.
According to the U.S. Department of State's human rights report for 2004 and similar sources, the Ethiopian government's human rights "remained poor; although there were improvements, serious problems remained". The report listed numerous cases where police and security forces are said to have harassed, illegally detained, tortured, and/or killed individuals, who were members of opposition groups or accused of being insurgents. Thousands of suspects remained in detention without charge, and lengthy pretrial detention continued to be a problem. Prison conditions were poor. The government often ignores citizens' privacy rights and laws regarding search warrants. Freedom House agrees; the site gave Ethiopia a six out of seven, which means that it is not free. Although fewer journalists have been arrested, detained, or punished in 2004 than in previous years, the government nevertheless continues to restrict freedom of the press. The government limits freedom of assembly, particularly for members of opposition groups, and security forces have used excessive force to break up demonstrations. Violence and discrimination against women continue to be problems. Female genital mutilation is widespread, although efforts to curb the practice have had some effect. The economic and sexual exploitation of children continues, as does human trafficking. Forced labor, particularly among children, is a persistent problem. Low-level government interference with labor unions continues. Although the government generally respected the free exercise of religion, local authorities at times interfere with religious practice. In order to improve Ethiopia's image, they hired US agencies to improve Ethiopia's image for $2.5 million. According to a report from Amnesty international 2016/2017 prolonged protests over political, economic, social and cultural grievances were met with excessive and lethal force by police. The report added that the crackdown on the political opposition saw mass arbitrary arrests, torture and other ill-treatment, unfair trials and violations of the rights to freedom of expression and association. On 9 October, the government announced a state of emergency, which led to further human rights violations. In September 2018, more than 20 have died in ethnic based attacks. Protestors outside the capital have been calling for the prime minister to issue a state of emergency to prevent further killings.
The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa, better known as the Maputo Protocol, is an international human rights instrument established by the African Union that went into effect in 2005. It guarantees comprehensive rights to women including the right to take part in the political process, to social and political equality with men, improved autonomy in their reproductive health decisions, and an end to female genital mutilation. It was adopted by the African Union in Maputo, Mozambique, in 2003 in the form of a protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.
The Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA) is a pan African non-governmental organisation whose primary work is the provision of pro bono legal counsel to victims of human rights violations. In its litigation mandate, IHRDA represents victims of human rights violations in cases before national courts and African regional human rights instances.
Regional human rights regimes are relatively independently coherent human rights sub-regimes that are nested within the larger frame work of International human rights practice. Three principal regional human rights instruments can be identified, the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, the American Convention on Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights.
The Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE) was an era established immediately after the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) seized power from the Marxist-Leninist People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (PDRE) in 1991. During the transitional period, Meles Zenawi served as the president of the TGE while Tamrat Layne was prime minister. Among other major shifts in the country's political institutions, it was under the authority of the TGE that the realignment of provincial boundaries on the basis of ethnolinguistic identity occurred. The TGE was in power until 1995, when it transitioned into the reconstituted Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia that remains today.
The African Governance Architecture (AGA) is a mechanism for dialogue between stakeholders that are mandated to promote good governance and bolster democracy in Africa. In the book entitled The African Union Law (Ed. Berger Levrault, 2014, p. 29) Blaise Tchikaya established the link between conceptual platform called AGA and the modernisation of International Law applicable to African states. The AGA is fundamentally one aspect – probably the most significant – of recent international law of governance. Furthermore, it is a key actor in promoting the domestication and implementation of the objectives outlined in the legal and policy pronouncements in the African Union (AU) Shared Values. Established in 2011 AGA is based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in the AU Headquarters with the AGA Platform Members based Africa wide. In February 2016 the rules of Procedure on how the AGA legally functions were adopted by Member States during the African Union Summit.
The Tigray War was an armed conflict that lasted from 3 November 2020 to 3 November 2022. The war was primarily fought in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia between the Ethiopian federal government and Eritrea on one side, and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) on the other.
The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is a national human rights institution (NHRI) established by the Ethiopian government. The EHRC is charged with promoting human rights and investigating human rights abuses in Ethiopia. The EHRC states organizational independence as one of its values. In October 2021, the EHRC's rating by the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions for operation in accordance with the UN Paris Principles was upgraded from grade B to grade A.
Fan, also FANO or Fanno, is an Amhara militia. One stated objective of Fano leadership as of March 2020 was for Benishangul-Gumuz Region's Metekel Zone, the northern districts of Welkait and Raya in Tigray, as well as the southern district of Dera to be placed under the control of the Amhara Region. During the Tigray War, Fano supported federal and Amhara regional forces against rebels aligned to the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).
All sides of the Tigray War have been repeatedly accused of committing war crimes since it began in November 2020. A September 2022 report by the UN found evidence of widespread "war crimes and crimes against humanity" committed by all parties, in particular, the Ethiopian federal government, the State of Eritrea and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF)."
The EHRC–OHCHR Tigray investigation is a human rights investigation launched jointly by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in mid-2021 into human rights violations of the Tigray War that started in November 2020. The EHRC–OHCHR joint investigation team's report was published on 3 November 2021.
The ACHPR Tigray investigation is an African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) investigation of human rights violations occurring in the Tigray War including extrajudicial executions of civilians and sexual violence. The ACHPR established the Commission of Inquiry into the situation in the Tigray Region to carry out the investigation under ACHPR resolution 482 of 12 May 2021.
The International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE) was established by the UN Human Rights Council in December 2021. The mandate of the commission is to investigate allegations of violations and abuses of international human rights law, humanitarian law and refugee law in Ethiopia committed since 3 November 2020 by all parties to the conflict. The Commission comprises three human rights experts and is appointed for a renewable one-year term.
