Background
In 2000, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights issued a landmark decision of international law, based on 37 cases brought against Mauritania that found Mauritania in violation of 13 of the 26 articles guaranteeing rights in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. IHRDA served as legal counsel for one of these complainants, Le Collectif des Veuves et Ayants Droit.

The cases were brought following the serious and massive human rights violations that occurred between 1986-1992. These included slavery, torture, extra-judicial executions, purging of Black Mauritanians from the military, civil service and Senegal River Valley through emptying of whole villages. These events brought Senegal and Mauritania to a near war.

The African Commission’s decision is of historical and legal significance for its breadth and especially for the specificity of the remedies that it mandated including:
• Repatriation of the thousands expelled and recognition of their citizenship and property rights;
• Prosecuting perpetrators of the condemned acts;
• Reinstatement of dismissed civil servants and military officers;
• Effective enforcement of anti-slavery laws.

For further information on IHRDA/OSJI’s continued work in Mauritania, please visit our ‘Mauritania Advocacy’ page at www.ihrda.org

Aim of the book
The work of Mauritanian civil society and international NGOs on implementation is a model of how the decisions of international tribunals can animate advocacy for justice and social change.

The book, Mauritanie: L’identité, la justice et les expulsions de 1989, will recount the socio-political movements in Mauritania that led to this tragic phase in its history. It will offer a critical assessment of the efforts to seek justice, how these resulted in a landmark decision in international law and the subsequent struggle to implement this decision, which included political and social change.

Its authorship will ensure a balance in gender and the socio-cultural diversities of Mauritania. The book will be first published in French though an English version may be issued in the future.

Each author will write a chapter. Chapter length will be around 5000 words and submission can be made in either English or French.

IHRDA/OSJI would thus like to invite qualified Mauritanians to submit abstracts, proposing contributions of chapters in the following areas:

PART I: FORMENTING DISCONTENT (1960-1989)
CHAPTER 1 - Socio-political background of Mauritania
CHAPTER 2 - Slavery and Social Marginalisation in Mauritania
CHAPTER 3 - Mauritania’s identity crisis and Inequality in society/relations between Berbers-Haratines and Negro-Mauritaniens
PART II: THE VIOLATION AND AFTERMATH (1989-2005)
CHAPTER 5- National politico-legal struggle for justice after the expulsions and related human rights violations (Cases presented, judgements thereof, the amnesty law)
PART III: THE RETURN (1995-2008)
CHAPTER 8 - Decision Implementation under Ould Taya, CMJD and Ould Abdellahi governments, and the politics that underlay the different approaches
CHAPTER 10 - The Repatriation under the 1995 Mauritania-Senegal bilateral agreement and the 2007 Tripartite Agreement
CHAPTER 11 - Challenges of repatriation on the vulnerable, especially women and children

Please note that the following chapters have already been allocated authors:
CHAPTER 4 - The Events of 1989-1992 (expulsions, and the related events)
CHAPTER 6 - Legal action at the African Human Rights System
CHAPTER 7 - Non-legal engagement of the ACHPR Special Rapporteur on Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons and Migrants
CHAPTER 9 - Repatriation in Dignity: From ideal to reality EPILOGUE

We encourage interested contributors to send abstracts of proposed chapters on the relevant chapters as well as any other areas of concern that may have been left out.

Abstracts should be sent to ihrda@ihrda.org by 31st January 2010 and should include a short biography of the writer.

Successful writers will be notified by 28th February 2010, and will be expected to submit full chapters by 30th April 2010.

Authors will receive an honorarium and two (2) complimentary copies of the published book.

For further enquiries, please contact

Julia Harrington
Senior Legal Officer, OSJI
jharrrington@justiceinitiative.org

or
Humphrey Sipalla
Publications and Communications Officer, IHRDA
hsipalla@ihrda.org