6. According to SERAP, the use of the term 'African organization' in Article 4 of the
Protocol and repeated in the Rules of Procedure of the Court represents a
conscious choice to leave the use for the Court to decide. SERAP submits that:
"unlike Article 4, Article 5 [of the Protocol] makes specific reference to 'African Intergovernmental organizations' which further goes to show that the drafters' intention in
Article 4 was to have a generic category of 'organization' that is broad and allencompassing to include organizations like SERAP. In fact, the phrase 'African
organization' is used throughout the Rules of Court, and there is nothing in the Rules to
suggest that the words have any restrictive meaning".
7. On the merits, SERAP relies on a number of UN instruments and
reports to es!-ablish a relationship between poverty and human rights.
8. SERAP refers to a World Bank report, published in 2013 1
which
indicates that the actual number of people living in poverty across
Africa has risen in recent times, despite the increasing discovery of
wealth and natural resources in many African States. According to
SERAP, while the report notes a marginal decline in the overall number
of people living in extreme poverty, it also provides proof that Africa
still has the highest poverty rate in the world, with 47.5 percent of the
population living on US$ 1.25 a day, which accounts for 30 percent of
the world's poor.
9. SERAP argues that in the final report of the ex-United Nations Human Rights
Commission, titled Human Rights and Extreme Poverty, Leandro Despouy2 stated
that poverty spreads and creates a vicious circle of poverty, noting that, the report
speaks of extreme poverty as a state of severe deprivation of basic human needs,
including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and
information, and that it "depended not only on income but also on access to social
services".
, See World Bank, 2013. 'Africa Development Indicators 2012/13'. (Washington, D.C: World Bank). Quoted by SERAP in ils
submission received allhe Registry on 29 January, 2016.
2
Chairman of the United Nations Human Rights Commission, March 2001 - March 2002.
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