Botswana's position is disappointing

And yet it is an institution deserving considerable interest: not only the most effective system of human rights protection throughout the world, it is also one of the most effective regimes of international law enforcement, rivaling even the spheres of international trade and investment. For the first decades of its existence the European system was relatively moribund. The few judgments the court issued were ignored. It took a few states, recognising the importance of this system before it finally became effective.

The leading role played by a few states in realising an effective European system makes the statements issued by Botswana government in response to the recent African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights ruling particularly disquieting. The ruling concerns the case of Kenneth Good, an academic deported from Botswana in 2005 for having written critically of Botswana's political system.