Some eight decades ago on 24 June 1932, Thailand embarked on a journey towards democratic transformation when the People's Party, an elite group of civil servants, princes, army officers and young intellectuals, who were well educated in Europe and fully infused with the concept of Western democracy, staged a bloodless coup d'etat, demanding a change of government from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. Determined to avoid any bloodshed, His Majesty King Prajadhipok (Rama VII) agreed to abolish absolute monarchy and the transfer of power to the constitution-based system of government by signing a temporary constitution on 27 June 1932. This constitution marked the arrival of Thailand's modern political constitutionalism - the idea that government can and should be legally limited in its powers. Since then, Thailand has been subject to 18 military coups followed by the promulgation of new and/or revised 18 constitutions and numerous changes of government. The turbulent history of Thailand's constitutionalism suggests that there is a need for major constitutional reform - one where the Constitution is reviewed to ensure adherence to the Rule of Law and democracy.

Today there is no greater challenge facing humanity than that of global poverty in thewake of over a decade of globalisation. The search for global solutions to the povertyhas recently been the focal point of the UN General Assembly’s 2005 WorldSummit. The Summit, an important milestone in UN history, brought together worldleaders who pledged continuing support for the Millennium Development Goalsaiming at eradicating extreme poverty and hunger as their highest priority. No doubt,globalisation has brought in new opportunities for developing countries, includinggreater access to the market of developed countries. As a result of globalisation, thecountries of Southeast Asia have successfully built sustainable and growingeconomies which have helped elevate millions of people out of poverty. Butglobalisation has been associated with new challenges like global poverty andinequality across and within least developed countries. As illustrated in Table 1below, despite development aid and loans provided by the World Bank and theInternational Monetary Fund (IMF), which are conditional on free market policiessuch as trade liberalisation and privatization, the situation in sub-Saharan Africa isstill particularly critical and continues to worsen.

This study examines how the African Court of Justice and Human Rights can be more effective in human rights protection in Africa. At its core, it scrutinizes the current African human rights regime, its weaknesses and strengths. The study argues that for the African Court of Justice and Human rights to be an effective institution, it must remedy the shortcomings encountered by the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights as well as the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights'. This thesis acknowledges that one of the main challenges for the consumers of human rights in Africa has been to find an effective forum in which the rights of the most vulnerable can be vindicated. It is argued that for the African Court of Justice and Human Rights to be an effective institution in Africa, it must position itself alongside African traditional judicial institutions and learn lessons from other well-established regional human rights institutions.

International law has traditionally been neutral towards the concept of an entitlement to democracy. ... In addition, traditional international law did not concern itself with the democratic character of sovereign States since democratic governance was not a criterion of statehood. ... While the provisions of the cited international instruments promoted certain aspects of the concept of democratic governance, they did not necessarily entail an emergence of a right to democracy in general international law because sovereignty and non-intervention into domestic affairs were emphasisedin all such instruments. ... Those who have supported the right of pro-democratic intervention need to establish not only that a right to democratic entitlement is now accepted as a rule of customary international law by the international community as a whole, but also that a right to democratic governance will necessarily entail the right of a State or 'coalition of the willing' to use force to establish, maintain or restore a democratic regime in another State.