Peoples’ Right to a Nationality by UNHCR-led global campaigns might not meet the target if it does not include collective and peoples’ rights to nationality. 8 The significance of the study cannot be overstated. Apart from individual human rights issues, the right to nationality and the prevention of statelessness in Africa could also be addressed as a specific African problem through the peoples’ rights perspective of human rights, which is a unique African perspective. This will be an opportunity for the continent to provide its own solutions to this problem in accordance with the AU’s policy of ‘Africa Solutions to African Problems’. 9 In fact, global stakeholders such as UNHCR and the Institute of Statelessness and Inclusion have carried out extensive research and published works on the subject. Unfortunately, global stakeholders have been unable to capture the aspect of collective peoples’ rights regarding the right to nationality in a more rigorous and systematic manner, in order to shape it into a solution to the problem of eradicating statelessness. Within the African perspective, therefore, the right to nationality, like the right to development provided for in art 22 of the Banjul Charter, is both an individual right and a peoples’ right, which should be reflected in the new Protocol. 10 The essence of this African perspective on human rights is not so much weighed on the concept of peoplehood, but rather on the collectivity and solidarity of rights on the continent. Finally, the study falls in line with Aspiration 6 of the African Union’s Agenda 2063: An Africa whose Development is People-driven, Relying on the Potential of African People. 11 THE BANJUL CHARTER-LED AFRICAN HUMAN RIGHTS SYSTEM: ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT The history of human rights has often been categorised into three broad periods namely: pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial periods. Scholars such as Ibrahima Fall have argued that although human rights were undocumented during the pre-colonial period, there is evidence of structured traditional societies in which basic human rights were respected. 12 During the colonial period, Africans enjoyed limited political, economic, social and cultural rights. There were human 8 9 10 11 12 ‘Ending Statelessness’, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Web Page) <https://www.unhcr.org/en-au/ending-statelessness.html>. The notion of ‘African Solutions’ was first expressed in the 1993 ‘Declaration of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government on the Establishment within the OAU of a Mechanism for Conflict Prevention, Management and Resolution’ (1994) 13(2–3) Refugee Survey Quarterly 174. It has gone on to be an expression used by African policy organs and scholars to mean the justifiable need for greater African responsibility, autonomy and the imperative to develop indigenous conflict prevention and management capacities: see Chrysantus Ayangafac, ‘African Solutions to African Problems: In Search of the African Renaissance’, Institute for Security Studies (Web Page, 9 July 2009) <https://issafrica.org/amp/iss-today/african-solutions-to-african-problems-in-search-of-theafrican-renaissance>. The African Union has, since 2015, been drafting a protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights on the right to a nationality and the eradication of statelessness in Africa: African Union, African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Draft Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on Certain Aspects of the Right to a Nationality and the Eradication of Statelessness in Africa (adopted September 2015) (‘Draft Protocol to the African Charter’). See ‘Agenda2063: Our Aspirations for the Africa We Want’, African Union (Web Page) <https://au.int/en/agenda2063/aspirations>. See Ibrahima Fall, ‘Des structures possibles à l’échelon régional africain pour la promotion des droits de l’homme’ (1977) 22 Revue Sénégalaise de Droit 69, 69–79. 35